the community banking group are the points of access in those communities. unless you are going to open a lot more branches. we need to include those points of access and have them perform multiple tasks, including funding these higher growth businesses. i'm going to open it up so think about your questions. before i do that, i want to ask you two if you have anything that you want to just add from the point of view of this discussion. we are really, i think, the looking at a whole array of kinds of businesses here. from the very, very highest growth sort of top, top, top tier to important high growth companies that really are going to be the job creators in their communities. and i think we've got, you know, an array of different kinds of product that we might want to

accentuate. >> can i say one point that i think is very important? there's a lot of data that shows the vast majority of funding in the private companies today comes from what you call friends and family. 85% plus. i'd love to discuss this. because most of these deals, i've introviewed a lot of entrepreneurs, they don't diverse the risk, thanks giving gets awkward, which is the own story. just putting them online, tracking them, educating them about compliance and what they need to do to have them be on the record and regular gaiteded- regulated is something that we care about. it's not just the smaller, slower growth companies. there are companies that

stafford friends get family funding alongside because they cared about including their classmates. this happens a lot. just to put that out there, i think it's a huge pocket that i want to bring to the forefront. >> all right. questions? yes. go ahead. >> karen, at the outset that you have suggested that exports are valuable, and also something that the administration would like to encourage. let me share with you one the biggest changes for me since i've been in the business the last 15 years, one the positive changes, i think in in light, significantly that's happening is most of our small companies, these are the high growth companies that greg and mike are referring to, actually start their lives global today. if we do the things they do, it's interesting, in some cases they sell overseas initially, and these are u.s. company that is have their core base here. the good news is i think if we meet the object i haves --

objectives that we've talked about, we will stimulate clean technologies, software, hardware, all of the real disruptive technologies that we are talking about. they are global, their competitors are global, they have to be global. i think if we do the right thing, we are going to do well by exports. which is real positive. >> this is a really important point. we tend to maybe think of these things in silos. but one the president's key initiatives is doubling exports over the next five years. and, of course, that involves, you know, large companies, boeing and others. when you look at the numbers, the real way we're going to do is in increasing in the small and medium-sized enterprises. turns out that 30% of the exports are from small and medium-sized enterprises. and that's disproportionally small. and there's only 250,000 small companies that export. so if you look at the math,

there's almost three million small businesses $30 million smalls. xiii of them who have traded goods. you are talking about two million that might have the potential to export, and only 50,000 export. we've been going around the country and understanding why. the first thing they say is fear. i'm afraid i won't get paid, i'm afraid there are regulatory barriers. these are things that we can solve. and we're working on in a very aggressive way. one the most interesting pieces of this is how do you take this sector that we're talking about today, these very fast-growing businesses that we want to stay here, that we want to grow here, maybe their independent companies that, you know, have their own product and idea. maybe they are part of a supply

chain. maybe they are part of the supply chain for the medical equipment. how do we make sure that we know the companies, that we are connected to them to provide capital, and connected to them to also provide advise, expertise, and draw drawn those regulatory barriers. this is something that gary locke and i have worked aggressively on, including reforming a piece so that, you know, they could have more ip protection and some of the trade agreements that we're working on. so this is a focus and i think very much relevant to the discussion that we're having today. other thoughts about this? >> on the expert just as an actual example which i think speaks in the importance, but also the risk. we have a portfolio companies that makes concentrating lenses that sells into the solar space. and the company today is actually headquartered in connecticut. it's an east updone company.

it was a successful product of the u.s. capital formation and capital markets had a subsidiary in germany that developed, but looking to manufacture mere in the states to be closer to large format solar installations. our experience was the german government moved much quicker to provide much more attractive tax subsidies and investment dollars behind keeping manufacturing in germany relative to the state of arizona, state of new york, state of california, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. i think there's an element too just the pace of response and our ability with our existing regulatory framework to move quickly with these high growth businesses. because when they need capital, they need it quickly. there's a contract that needs fulfillment. they need to show credibility. they need access. our experience is that they are watching foreign government relative to our own.

the speed with which we need to address the needs of the company were just woefully out of whack with where everybody else was. i think that's something that we need to think about. >> i want to add on to that point. i 100% agree with my goal. we have nine international offices. just thinking of china and india's two markets that we're in. the ability for the governments to simply in china to act quickly to support companies in the innovation sector is utterly amazing. the government comes in and provides capital, the government provides access to opportunities to sell inside to the government, you know, in fact, for us, strangely enough, it was the u.s. government is trying to with the volcker rule, not specifically, the rule the way it's written is make it prohibitive for us to invest in venture capital firms. two years, the china gave svd

money to invest in china. it happens in two weeks. we want given your expertise to invest money in china in the top capital firms. and literally happened in two weeks. their ability to make decisions quickly is for me one the concerns for the u.s. which is they see the innovation sector as well. as much as i'm a believer in the u.s. ability to create jobs and innovation will continue to be a dominant player here, we can't take our eye off of the ball in the whole world economy and what's happening. it is -- the activity level is definitely picking up. >> yup. and that's really the call to action here. i want to be able to out compete, others based on our entrepreneurial assets. yes? >> hi, i'm claudia veek, i run

cameo which is a statewide effort of microfinance in california. i'd like to make a couple of points. everything starts with micro. every business that we're talking about here in terms of startups. i of course come more from bill and jessica's sector. but we are also seeing in california, i think it's true in other states, a change in the work force. yes, job creation is coming from mid-sized businesses, but really we are seeing more self-employees and free agents doing business with one another. that's an important feature when we are looking at how to support growth. the other point on that too is that as bill said, this is the time when we should be increasing investments in cdfis and technical assistance. it's great to see the increase in capital, and we're seeing more banks because of the community advantage they are going to be investing in cdfis. but we've got to see an increase in the business assistance. you mention mentoring for the

high growth potential businesses. let's keep those funds for the women business centers for the prime programs. they are so small. but they make such a big difference in the kinds of communities that bill and i work in. >> yes. true. we'll take one more question. then we'll go to the lightning round. >> hi, i'm mark wilson. i actually don't have a home to name as a company. we just sold our company a few months ago. two points that i want to make. the first is kind of piggy backing what was talked about in speed of providing capital to those companies that are high growth. our company went through a spurt in two years we grew from 24 million to more than 100 million. and the biggest problem was the fact that we were needing cash. it actually -- there was a problem of outcome to it. >> the faster that you grow, the more cash that you need. that's the secret. >> that is absolutely the truth. there was a positive outcome to it, because we were able to, you

know, go out and start to try to acquire the cash and it led to us exiting. but it was a challenge. we almost didn't get the chance to execute on the business that we had won. the second point has to do with visibility. you talk about the underserved market, we were creating a lot of jobs, more than 2,000 in the last two and a half years. and most of those folks come from underserved communities. and those businesses that are out there like ours that are providing those jobs, a lot of times don't understand and don't know about the program that is are available to them that actually will help them to fuel the growth in their businesses. and i think as an effort what could happen here is more education, more visibility to the things that are available to entrepreneurs in the public at large. >> that is certainly the case. and i want to mention that and put in a plug for one the thing that is we don't talk about here. but it can be a big accelerator

of high growth companies. and that's job contracting. the sba we're responsible to make sure that 23% of all government contracts go to small businesses. that's $100 billion. that's $100 billion a year, no cost to taxpayers or subsidies in that, and it's a win/win because the agencies are getting access to the most innovative technologies and companies and usually the ceo who is young, working on that account himself or herself. these programs are very critical. they have special elements for women-owned businesses, service disabled veteran-owned businesses, and service for disadvantaged businesses. we have seen a couple of things. agency join with us to make sure we're going to meet those goals,

and particularly the department of defense and the navy for one taking a proactive approach to open their doors to innovative small companies. there's a green portal that we created with the navy with randy, the secretary of the navy, to make sure small companies could get on, get visible, and get visibility to the efforts that the navy is making to make, you know, their thousands and thousands of buildings green. and their activities in their fuel supplies green. so we have a lot of mechanisms, that i think as you said are not completely visible to the entrepreneurial community. one the things we're going to try to do here and in startup america is make them more broadly. all right, we in lightning round. and we are going to go to what i think was very useful that tim

started in the beginning and said what -- if you had some advise for the policymakers today, give us something concrete that you think would help increase access to capital really across the spectrum that we talked about today. greg, do you want to start? >> i'll go back to what i reiterated. this fits in the do no harm from regulation, specifically on the volcker rule is having a big impact. it is an example right now where we are out raising our 5th funds to funds, and we have a state pension looking to put $100 million into the fund. and the biggest issue is the volcker rule and what's going to happen. yes, it's been under determined yes, but they are not willing to put the money in until it's resolved. which means they may walk. that's a huge issue for money

going into venture capital, and it's a huge issue for us. i talked about the fda reform, and also being able to do clean tech loan guarantees as a third point. all three of those are actionable and can have a positive impact with a short period of time. >> yeah, lightning round. so number one, i agree with greg. i think some form of government guarantee program that effectively creating collateral where collateral doesn't exist i think will go a long way to changing the perspective that certain companies aren't bankable for a brief period of time. that can probably be done within existing regulatory framework. two, i would look at expanding the sbic program to larger managers. as an example, the venture program has a limit of $25 million. for larger managers that can afford to build in local markets that require capital that's

frankly not attractive enough to go through the process and regulatory requirement to really manage that program. and i think investing in larger managers and larger organizations that can build national scale to the existing to venture program would be quite helpful. i'd also look maybe at some specific vc delegation if you will within the existing to venture program to try to create different carve outs for higher growth companies that because of the risk return don't necessarily fit with a lot of investing managers. i too would look to provide subsidies to some of the larger energy and life sciences companies today to make sure their incentivized to spend technologies out and attract capital. i think we can do better there. self-servedly, i'd give review to the sector that we operate in. it's a wonderful way to attract

retail capital into the venture and private equity, both equity and debt. it was developed in the 1980s to do what we are talking about today. that said, there are a number of structural constraints and regulatory around the growth that could be resolved in order to get capital flowing. it's probably another whole topic of discussion, but it's something that's near and dear to our heart. >> a couple of points. i think it's really important to continue to learn from and support the kind of work that cdfis do in underserved communities. we need to incentively investors in cdfi like calvert and goldman who has put millions of dollars into the institutions and other banks that are making the investments. and also something that i didn't get to talk about and didn't get touched on much earlier today, we need to really take a close look at the demographic reality

that are going on in the country. in mississippi, over half of the children born are children of color. soon that will be all of us. we will be a much more diverse country, and historically, and still minority businesses get less capital, the capital is more expensive. the businesses when they get capital, they perform at our better than traditional businesses. so we need to invest in these companies and again cdfis have been one the most effective means for making this happen. >> i have three things. one i've made any regulation 504 and 506 related request. i look forward to have conversations about those. please make it easier for everyday people to understand and comply with regulations, especially those relevant to early stage fund raising, and it took us thousands of dollars to map out in every state how to do

504. third, it's touchy feeling look inside yourself. our actions can influence how we think. for this country to thrive, i believe we need widespread participation in knips, as investors and entrepreneurs ourselves. when we have this, our views and our briefs about potential and possibility will shift. therefore, this game has to be open to absolutely everybody. >> great. thank you very much for the panelist. and thank you to you all. we continue now with lunch. and the breakout session. thanks very much. [applause] [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> coming ble conversations] >> coming up at 1:30 eastern, live --

>> this weekend on book tv, the washington post leads a conversation about the failed assess nation of robert reagan. >> on television, on radio, and

online. c-span, springing public affairs to you. created by cable, it's washington your way. >> the century foundation's international task force on afghanistan released the report yesterday on the prospects for peace in afghanistan. the group calls the war there a stall -- stalemate, and recommends a settlement. it includes tomas pickering, u.s. ambassador to the united nations discuss this for about an hour. >> thank you for joining us today. i'm steve clemons and working with afghanistan, negotiating peace the international task force on afghanistan in it's regional and multilateral dimensions. if all of you had time to see in

the "new york times" titled settling the afghan war. lakhdar brahimi and thomas pickering make their case for afghanistan. the following is we're streaming this live on a number of blogs and web sites around the world. i want to agree to all of those folks and say a special hello to c-span which is covering and spokes with voice of america. and we have about to come up and say a few words is the task force staff director for this and the head of foreign policy programs at the century foundation, jeffrey laurenti. i'm going to quickly introduce our panel. we have lawrence corp., senior fellow, former assistant secretary of defense, ambassador

thomas pickering, who served as the task force co-chair, and undersecretary of state for political affairs, and served as ambassador to six countries, they got tired of appointing him and said take the world. we have lakhdar brahimi, the task force other co-chair former u.n. special representative from 1997 to 1999, as well as 2001 to 2004, and finally james dobbins, director of the policy from at the research division at rand and special envoy for afghanistan. thank you very much. let me now invest jeffrey laurenti to the stage. jeff? >> thank you very much, steve. thank you all for coming. two years ago as the new obama administration confronted the eminent collapse of the neglected project to reconstruct

and secure afghanistan, washington think tank was a buzz with excitement about counterinsurgency as the cure the desperating situation. from the century foundation in new york, reflecting with our friends at the carnegie corporation, we were doubtful that this would end what was already's afghanistan's 30-year war. major troop reinforcements could recoop loss ground, but this had been for 30 years a war with lots of foreign hands. and perhaps too many foreign intelligence services involved to be set right by yet another military solution. the end game would not be shock and awe we thought, but afghan regional and global politics. so enlisting financial support from the carnegie corporation, the rockefeller brother's front, and active collaboration with

the german foundation, we embark on the project to look at afghanistan in it's regional and multilateral dimensions, led by an acceptional international task force composed of distinguishing people in these areas. majority international, majority american. we were particularly fortunate to recruit two pureless co-chairing, lakhdar brahimi who is the u.n. special envoy in afghanistan in the late 1990s during taliban rule. he was the wizard, and from late 2000 to 2004 he was the u.s. special representative in afghanistan. one the few people talking the streets in this city that has engaged directly with mullah omar.

he's america's most accomplished ambassador, and ambassador that could have broken somebody's career but made it into an exceptional series of addressing problems for the -- for america on the world stage culminating for this project as ambassador to the united nations, ambassador to india, ambassadors to russia, all places relevant to finding solutions to the afghan problem. he was undersecretary for political affairs at precisely the time that the taliban emirate was faithfully embracing with al qaeda. it spans administration from reagan to the second bush, and international span from china, russia, west europe, and japan and turkey. they preface pages xv to 17

spells out the inputs that the task force had. sometimes brilliant background papers in the end of the report, and particularly one just published on women in afghanistan on the perspective of somebody who was under cover trying to maintain women's schools during taliban rule in their country. with background meetings in a dozen capitols, including a meeting with afghan on all sides from senior officials to the kabul government to the political opposition within that political system to civil society to, yes, persons intimately linked to the insurgency. and we at century, my colleague michael hannah and we provided the kind of support that handwriting what was being told to us by the wisdom of those

task force members. they set the course and it's to them that we now turn to outline to you our groups recommendations and findings. so tom? >> thank you very much, jeff, for your very kind introduction and for your setting the stage. i begin by saying the reports findings with the wildly varying were unanimous. we were like many reports, free of footnotes, disclaimers, and i think even at this stage, any serious differences in the report quite remarkable and quite unusual and i think quite encouraging. because many of the people who were concerned have had long and deep experience in afghanistan and had the opportunity to join us in meetings around the world to no one understand precisely

how people in the region were appreciating and understanding this issue. my job is the simple one. the every man's or every women's guide to the report to give you a sense of what question addressed and how we see it. we were essentially three major questions on our minds that formed the backbone of the structure of the report and indeed our recommendations. one was is it appropriate to have a negotiation and if so when. the second was what to negotiate about. and the third one fairly simple, how to get there. in each of these, we come forward with what we think are considered analysis and very carefully phrased and focused recommendations. to begin with, the first one, it was not immediately apparent when we began and still isn't to this day in this town and around the world that a negotiation has a place in all of this. we think it does. we think it does for a number of reasons. one, we detect with the help of many on both sides, including

our one military leaders, a sense of military stalemate. progress maybe made shoving back and forth across the 20 or 50 yardline a different ways of dealing with the problem. but we don't see any goals in sight, and we see no crossing of a goalline. the second point that i would make is that people are getting tired, the financial costs are increasing, our friends and allies are going home, that we see some weariness and frustration that things aren't moving the way they wish to go. :

when i give you the answer from the task force for the, for the third question. the second question is the difficult one but it is very clearly that the central focus of a negotiation will be among afghans about the future governance of their country and we'll have to involve afghans from the four parties that jeff so succinctly set out for you. the president government, led by hamid karzai, the loyal opposition in effect for all of you in tell graphees, the northern alliance folks, civil society particularly those groups emerged in last two or three years who are truly impressive in kabul in their

dedication to the future of their country and search for peace and equity and just tis for getting there. and for the taliban, a significant number who indicated to us directly and indirectly their sense that a negotiating process has for them an important role to play in the future of the country from their own somewhat narrow perspective. i think it is also important to recognize that there are many other issues that have to be addressed in the course of governance and beyond. central to that of course are forms of governance. is a parliamentary system of any value and any use in the future? how and in what way do appointments take place? what's the structure of the future of the government regionally and centrally? is islam as now enshrined in the coinstution adequate? how and what way against that backdrop can one assure human rights and the rights of women are preserved and

maintained and indeed prospered in the future of this country and many other issues. justice and accountability, the regional role of afghanistan and so on. the international community has its own thoughts about the negotiations and somewhat more prescriptively. the northern return of al qaeda, for example. the disappearance of foreign forces, for example. there are other questions that will need to be addressed. the question of how to get there was particularly interesting and i think particularly taxing for us. there are many ways to go. we decided that we would try to not only illustrate but inform the international community, those who will pay attention to this report, and we hope it will be attended to widely, that we thought there was one approach to this that made more sense than perhaps any others. it was an approach built around a process of

facilitation. the appointment of a facilitator, a person, a group, a state, perhaps a group of states, perhaps an international organization, could fulfill this role. we thought that u.n. blessing would be helpful for this particular kind of a process. but the primary and initial role of the facilitator would be to talk with all of the parties and explore extensively with them two questions. one was, was there really a consensus building in favor of negotiations? and secondly, on the basis of the development of that question what did they want and how did they believe they could get it as a result of the negotiations? those questions are critical. at the end of an exploration process we thought that the facilitation mechanism should consider next steps and we daned to suggest from

our perspective an appropriate next step if it was decided to go ahead, was to create something we like to call a standing international conference. a group that will bring together the key players. it will have in our view two important roles to play. one it will be the center of for an interafghan negotiation which should take precedence in our view to help to decide those critical questions that particularly relate to afghanistan itself before parties, perhaps the facilitation. but around them should be clustered various circles of players, critical and very important. of course are pakistan and the united states, for all the reasons you know better than i do but close in as another circle, countries like iran and india. the central asian neighbors of afghanistan, turkmenistan,

uzbekistan, tajikistan particularly. beyond but closely related china and russia. the european union or its key members. japan. turkey a special and interesting possibility given its particularly important role in the region and its current involvement in afghanistan, perhaps saudi arabia and perhaps others. we are not prescriptive with respect to that their role will be initially to work closely with the facilitator to help in fact eshouldn't -- cement ties and bring forward the kind of agreements that are absolutely necessary to see the inner afghan part of the process prosper. their second role will be and it will evolve in our view over time to also consult together and perhaps negotiate to understeak how and in what way the international community and particularly the region will both support what it is that the afghans can agree. support what the afghans

would like with result, with respect to their future status in the region and the world. is it neutrality? is it none alignment or is it something else and make commitments themselves on critical future of afghanistan. central economic assistance and wherever required in the view of a future afghan government, security, aid and assistance particularly to help against any resurgence of al qaeda presence inside afghanistan and perhaps thought that is one or another party may have of jumping ship once it is put together as well as a whole series of issues having to do with the international role in afghanistan. peacekeeping and here we're very much persuaded that needs to be monitoring and indeed verification of the agreement is a central part of the process of working things out. all of this in fact is, i

think illustrative of the fact from our perspective a military surge and an economic surge needs to be complimented by a diplomatic surge to take advantage indeed of all the progress that has been made and to take advantage of what we see now clearly is the oaf solution of the situation. we are encouraged that we present this today at the right time. we're encouraged that not only among the aficionadoes huddled behind desks in dark rooms in academia has this idea struck a chord of interest but now even more importantly out in public up to and including the highest officials in many countries around the world, many of whom we have consulted with in advance. we are not persuaded that presenting surprises gets you anywhere. presenting consensus is much more, i think effective and that's what we have tried to achieve. and now, it is my great

pleasure, to ask lakhdar brahimi who has been there and done that a number of times with respect to this country and indeed other places in the region to share his personal wisdom about this issue and indeed to share with you the many great contributions he made to the production of our report. lakhdar, please. >> you said everything, tom. i don't know what you want me to add. perhaps just emphasize the point that tom made at the end of his presentation and that is that, although we were fit teen people not representing anybody exempt ourselves coming from various countries but i

think we were from the beginning clearly in our mind that our work is not an academic work. it is something we hope will be useful to the people who are concerned with issues of war and peace who are concerned with the many, many problems of afghanistan and therefore, that as we worked along to try and prepare the ideas that you will see in this report and that tom had summed up beautifully for you, in doing that we needed to speak to as many people as possible to avoid, as tom said, surprising them. not only here in washington, the americans, the united nations in new york. the government and others in

kabul and in afghanistan and i think elsewhere too because some of us, as a matter of fact went out of call up -- kabul. many of us went to pakistan and talked to not only the government, the military but also to members of parliament and civil society, former ambassadors that we have known in the past and who are still talking to their government. india, we did the same thing. we haven't been able to go to tehran unfortunately but we did talk to the government of iran and a few others from iran. a couple of academics here and elsewhere. so we have made sure that people knew a little bit what kind of ideas we had

started with. tried those ideas on them. listened to their views and then worked out this report that you are going to see. so we think that there isn't much new in the report but there are perhaps a new way of putting out these ideas and organizing them to see how we're going to move from the situation that exists now to hopefully peace at long last in afghanistan, for afghanistan, for its neighbors and for the rest of the world. i would like to add a few things. why, amongst other things why, you know, these idea of negotiating a settlement that we hopefully be

accepted and supported by everybody in afghanistan and also accepted by the neighbors of afghanistan. tom had m my personal experience. my personal experience in afghanistan is that i had two incarnations there. the first time i was the envoy of the united nations to try and put an end to the civil war that existed there in afghanistan when the taliban were slowly, not that slowly actually, taking over most of the country by the 11th of september, they controlled by 90, 95% of the country. in that period, so we tried to see if we could make, help the afghan factions come to an agreement with one another and we failed.

we failed completely. i myself resigned in 1999. that effort was continueded by the united nations after i left. then the 11th of september came and actually the conflict was finishing because the taliban were practically, had practically taken over the country. but see, we were telling the taliban that, you see, okay, you control the territory but you are not going to have peace unless the other parties accept the kind of dispensation that is going to be in kabul and elsewhere in afghanistan. but they thought that, you know, if they took control of the country it will be all right. the second incarnation we had was after the 11th of september.

we, the united nations meaning, tried to see if on the back of the military campaign of the americans against afghanistan, against the taliban, because the taliban were harboring the people who attacked the united states, if on, following that military campaign of the americans we could resume our efforts and help the afghans create a government and rebuild a state that was acceptable to all its people. i think that we have made considerable progress in doing that. afghanistan i think has an elected president. they have a parliament. they have, i think development has taken place over the last 10 years as it

never had before in the history of afghanistan. all this is very good. but i think we made a number of mistakes. in bonn it was impossible to have the taliban. i think even if we had invited them they wouldn't have come. it was impossible to have them there but the next best thing we failed to do. the next best thing should have been to start exploring the possibility of talking to the tall baun, -- taliban, those willing to talk to us, immediately after we returned from bonn to afghanistan. you know, i'm sorry some of you in this room have heard me say this one thousand times. the taliban did not surrender to anybody. they didn't recognize they had been beaten. they controlled 90% of the

country. where had they gone? when we arrived and installed karzai as the government, where did the taliban? where were they? a lot of them were killed. a lot of them were arrested. a lot of them were massacred and a lot of them were taken to guantanamo but the bulk of the taliban were still there. where did they go? we didn't ask this question? we didn't go out and look for them. i'm absolutely certain and have been for a very, very long time that if we had made that effort, perhaps we wouldn't be where we are now. the second question is that, isaf, which was formed at the recommendation of the conference in bonn, was a noncombatant force of about 5,000 soldiers, mainly from, almost exclusively from western countries.

it was very clear, clearly said that, we would start with this small force only in kabul and its immediate surroundings. then we would see if we need ad bigger force we would go back and ask for more soldiers. one of the reasons why the force was small and limited to kabul was that, the great reputation of afghanistan. they don't like foreigners. they would not accept a foreign army. i think some people, as a matter of fact, said they will kill the first soldier that we set foot in afghanistan. that did not happen. on the contrary, not only the people in kabul welcomed that force, mind you, led by british general and you know the history of britain in that country. not only in kabul were there but people were coming from everywhere. can we please have some of these soldiers in sharif,

kandahar, everywhere? so we immediately asked for more soldiers and ultimately we were unsuccessful in getting more troops for isaf. these are, i think two important mistakes we have made. a third one, if again, may be a little bit personal. in 2003 i went around with what we called then the bonn 2 paper. what we were saying is that, it was done extremely well that we have been here after 2001 but, surely we made mistakes. surely because of the success, perhaps we need to sit and revise a little bit, i mean look back at what we have done and adjust our, what we are doing and that

also was rejected. in those days we were flattered by saying this is marvlous. what you have done is perfect. you don't need to do anything else. you see that it wasn't that perfect. so, you know, this is a little bit of the background that has convinced me that a new approach is needed. what has been done is good. it has been successful in part. you know, just like what, you know, i personally did with jim dobbins the very first days in bonn and immediately after bonn. we did great things, very, very good things but we also made mistakes. this is the same thing that is happening today. a lot of very, very good things are happening but not everything that is being done is perfect. so a new approach is needed and that new approach, we think quite a few interesting elements of that new approach are in the, in

this report that tom has up is up for you. i think will stop there for the moment. and then jim dobbins, who knows everything about anything, will tell you the truth. >> lakhdar, you have to speak for yourself about those early mistakes. no, i agree with both of the main mistakes that you mentioned. i just add that one of the things that struck us as we did our research for this, for this report was the overwhelming support within afghan society for some kind of process of negotiation, accommodation, and, peace negotiations. polling shows that strikingly strong majorities of the population that want a peace

settlement, that are prepared to make some unspecified obviously, accommodations to get a peace settlement, and what's interesting is that there's strong support, even in the elements of the society one would think would be most skeptical. the components of the northern alliance. tajik and uzbek minorities in the country. this support isn't universally shared among their political representatives in, in kabul all they it is, i think, important to recognize that the former northern alliance president is in fact the chairman of the high peace council in charge of creating a national consensus in support of this process. in the united states i think there's been a debate over the last year or two between the concepts of reintegration and

reconciliation. reintegration is thought of as a bottom-up process which you detach elements of the insurgency essentially on the iraq model of putting them on the western payroll, which was very successful in iraq and which has had some, much more modest success in afghanistan. or reconciliation which is considered a top-down process which you negotiate with the leadership of the insurgency in an effort to declare an end to the conflict. and i think it's our view that these are entirely compatible approaches and that in fact if you pursue them both simultaneously, you will be more successful doing both. that is if you're talking or trying to talk to the leadership, it's going to be easier to talk to the foot soldier and the captain in the field. his bosses are talking, why shouldn't he? and therefore local setments and efforts to bring over,

cease the conflict at the local level will be facilitated. similarly to the extent you're having success at the lower level, you're putting pressures on the upper level to go ahead and make a deal before they lose the support of their, of their constituency. so we do see these as mutually reinforcing processes. i think, i sense that the debate in washington over this has diminished if not ceased entirely. i think anybody who reads hillary clinton's each of february 18th will see an unambiguous endorsement of the concept of reconciliation. that is, an effort at a top-down process. now none of us can firmly predict that this will succeed but we do believe that there's a realistic chance and we believe that there's nothing to be lost in trying and a great deal to be gained. >> i will be very brief so

we can get to the questions. this was a wonderful experience for me because the americans were in minority. i've been on a lot of task forces before but never in the minority and i learned as much from the other members of the task force as i did on the visits to afghanistan. plus given the fact that our visit was not dominated by the united states we got, i think, a lot more frank discussions from the various, various members. everybody agrees there's no military solution. secretary clinton, secretary gates have said that. as tom mentioned, the commanders over there indicated that. they're also on record as saying that. and i think that's why it is important, you will have to move toward a diplomatic, diplomatic solution. the other thing to keep in mind is, that not only the afghans are tired of the war, americans are tired as well as a lot of our allies and they're beginning to want to, want to leave. which also the country, as

you know is broke and for every soldier, marine or other members of the armed forces we keep there costs us about a million dollars. also, as we point out in the report, it's costing about $10 billion on the part of our major allies to be there and they're also having economic problems. you also have two other things. our military forces, particularly the ground forces, are overstretched and overstrained and to keep continue this for long period of time is only going to increase that on the forces. also, in terms of dealing with our budget deficit the defense department is projecting as part of their contribution to deficit reduction to begin to reduce the size of the army and the marine corps by, within a couple of years. and again that's going to make it more difficult to keep up this deployment schedule. there is, and we quote secretary gates and in there.

this is not going to be a perfect solution. i think secretary gates used the term no central asian valhalla here. the idea you're going to have this is certainly not going to come about. and finally why no now? i think from a military point of view, keep in mind when president obama unveiled his so-called surge at west point in december 2009 he talked about this summer as a point to begin withdrawing our troops. and i think this will happen. and it also i think is a good time for the taliban to want to enter into the negotiations because our feeling wag -- was based upon the conversations we had over there that the taliban did not want to look like they had been defeated by the surge. once you begin to tamper that down, i think they will be more willing to enter into these type of negotiations. finally as we did this, i was reminded of something

that the contends used to quote and president reagan i had the privilege to serving, quoted, if not us, who? if not now, when? thank you. [applause] >> for those who are listening or watching the report is available at the century foundation's website, www.tc fdot org. i forequestions, state your name and affiliation. there is a microphone that should be going around the room. >> thank you. david wood from the "huffington post". the most recent assessment we've seen from the u.s. military negotiations are a great idea but first we've got a to get a little edge over the taliban on the battlefield so we come at this a position of strength. i assume the taliban has the

same approach. what is your assessment whether those ideas are for public consumption? how much do you think the u.s. military and the taliban are really tired of fighting? and if not, how do you get beyond that kind of resistance to negotiating unless you're in a position of strength? >> let me just say we addressed that question at extreme length. there's no question at all that it was very much in everybody's mind. i think the simple answer is that when you are at the height of your powers, the slope ahead is all downward. and you want to be careful about when you select your time. it takes two to negotiate obviously but it is and in our view now, with all of the facts that we have put on the table, and with all of the conversation we had, the appropriate time to

begin the exploration. there are, on the american side, obviously pending changes but we are not sure, in fact, even force reductions will mean a great deal of difference in terms of force capability. however, i would like to emphasize again central thesis of our view is that, this is a military stalemate and that we don't see signs of that breaking soon and that the longer you wait to begin a process of seeing whether there is a political answer, in our humble view the harder it becomes. . .

>> why promote more bureaucratic structures? make work for more diplomats? thank you. >> being the next diplomat, let me take a whack at that. 10 months ago, or 12 months and, it was not so much of a slam dunk. it was a much harder problem. secondly, it is now time to bring the threads together. a certain amount of support in laudable objectives maybe right. but over time if you want to take energy, you'll have to focus it, organize it, and move

it. and so in effect numerous back channels, some wine feed and some not so bona fide, endless numbers of individual conversations are all pretty much taken into account in the report that says now we are on the cusp of needing a serious effort that will in effect move ahead in phases which we have set out and try not to just kind of replicate what is essentially a series of isolated conversations and semijamborees and put it somewhere that could lead somewhere. we feel this is a serious conversation on the report. >> could i add a point on the facilitator? i think make a couple of factors that featured in our recommendation. first of all, we think this is a full-time job. it's not something that can be

an added function to something who's already pretty busy. secondly, it can't be done principally in kabul. most of the people that you want to talk to aren't in kabul. the taliban aren't in kabul, they are in pakistan if anywhere in leadership. you also want to engage the neighboring company and the local ambassador, and require consultations and variety of forms. finally, if a process is started, again, that process almost certainly won't take place in kabul. so those are some of the factors that led us to believe that something new was required in addition to you are quite right, the soundings that the u.s., the uk, the u.n., and the afghan government has been taking on this subject. >> i'm harlem alleman, thanks

for your report. let me put to the question to the panel to tom pickering if i may, two questions. first you talk about a facilitator. who's going to be the initiator? how are you going to get it under way? who's going to light the fuse? pakistan is clearly and self-evidently critical, just when you think the relations between the u.s. and pakistan can't get worse, they manage to do so. what's the plan for improving u.s.-pakistani relations and making sure they are part of the team and not part of the opposition? >> we have not pointed, because we have no authority to appoint the lead. there is no question at all that this means and will have to mean as much to the u.s. as any other party. and so i think without the u.s. it won't work. the u.s. has the peculiar possibility, perhaps more than anyone else that we can think of at the moment. perhaps working here with china to bring islamabad further along

the path because it has to become. the afghans are critical and it is that nexus in my view. i can't believe the american tradition of always wanting to solve every problem and seeing itself as the irreplaceable sparkplug that it won't start there. the proposal is not to improve pakistani-u.s. relations per se, but my own view is that i cannot imagine anything that would make a greater positive difference in pakistani, u.s. relations was a process that led to some reasonable and acceptable solution to afghanistan. as difficult as we all see that now. in fact, one further comment. nine months ago we saw the process being entirely improbable. we now see after conversations

that it is probable and indeed possible. now we see the negotiations and the agreements that have to be reached as entirely improbable if not extremely difficult. but i think over time we have even begun to see signs that what we're preconditions to discussion on each side are now being moved as secretary clinton said in to becoming their negotiating objectives in a process once under way. these are encouraging. and they are helpful. and in my sense, they can help make that difference that we all would like to see in pakistan-u.s. relations. >> let me take two questions at a time. so we'll go right here first, then in the front row. >> dennis koch from the woodrow wilson center. looking further down the road,

what do you see -- do you see the u.s. bases in afghanistan? what's the u.s. military role going to be the day after you have an international accord? and second do you visit part of the international accord or acceptance by the duran line which would be very important in getting pakistan on board? >> we'll take one more. one more question. >> my name is jake, i represent a coalition for afghanistan. i want to say thank you for your due process. we've been advocates roughly for two years to get this going and get troops out of there. i'm generally critical for counterinsurgency as a method of war. it seemed limited. my question regards to president

obama and the administration, you have all talked to a number of different people. does the current administration have the courage in the election year to start this process and follow through to the end? because if we don't -- if the administration doesn't follow through, what will happen if there's a change over in leadership? how will that end up? what are the political outcomes of this? >> maybe, neil, before we get too far down on this and don't answer half of the questions, i could take a brief shot at those questions. thank you for calling all of my best friends here who are experts at torture. [laughter] >> dennis, i think that the question of u.s. bases is clearly an issue between afghanistan and the united states and certainly in the context of a negotiation between all of the afghan parties. my own personal view on this is that what the administration has been saying about not seeking an

extensive or indeed any base presence, but certainly committing itself to long-term support of an afghan government in whatever way is necessary, including militarily is probably as good of an answer as anyone can find. but it was not a central subject of the report because the report only suggests ways ahead. it does seek to prescribe points of agreement or indeed specific ways to get there. maybe others will come along in the near future and begin to be helpful on that part. but it was hard enough to get over the initial two humps than to try to prescribe other questions. i think on the durand line, it falls into the same category. this is a question between afghanistan and pakistan. as you know better than anyone in the room, fraught with difficulties. in the end, one could only hope that it does not become a central roadblock.

and secondly, that over a period of time, the two countries will find ways either bilaterally or using judicial process to see if they can find an answer to that question. thank you, jake, very much for your points. i would only emphasize that we have from the very early days of this report, discussed it with key officials of the obama administration. they will have to speak for themselves. but on the record last night, they indicated that they welcomed the consultations, that they welcomed the report, that they thought it would be useful. my own feeling is that the central purpose behind this report with all of the players with whom we spoke is that we wanted to give them an inspiration and a way to gear up courage to move ahead. but to do so on the basis of facts and analysis as we understood it, not on the basis of hype and hock. and i think that we have tried. but it's up to you to decide

whether, in fact, the report is in the right ballpark. our consultations lead us to believe that for obama administration and with the people who have spoken, it is in the right ballpark. >> let me make one point. we talk about the fact after you come to an agreement, you may need a u.n. peace keeping force. we model on several of the other countries where that has happened after a negotiation. >> hi. you mentioned there's a widespread agreement on the need for political end of the conflict. which is certainly true in terms of the rhetoric, but i wonder if what you have laid out in the report is that close to the current official u.s. policy. you mention the secretary of state speech in february, --

february 18th, in that the policy has been on the reconciliation of the taliban, to denounce violence, and split the movement from the irreconcilable core and bring on side more movements. i think that's similar. first of all, the outlines of the possible settlement that you have laid out, argue for power sharing and possibility the security forces and secondly i think that addressing the taliban as a unified movement like you argue for in this report is different from trying to split them. i wonder if you could address that. >> maybe i could do the one piece on the u.s. policy and then ask lakhdar to do the taliban movement in particular, but also ask larry and jim. i think that everybody is free to give their own opinion on the

secretary's speech. but i would point out it's the feeling of many that reintegration which was bringing people in which was remarked here from the podium a moment ago is entirely compatible with reconciliation, which is finding a way forward, beginning at a political level which is very significant. secondly, the secretary was very careful to say, it's one of the most important parts of our speech, of her speech that those who were looking previously at preconditions for discussion have now converted those preconditions into negotiating objectives. so i think that there's no -- put it this way, internal disagreement on these particular points. but let me have lakhdar also give you his sense of that particular set of responses to your question. >> you are absolutely right.

that our accommodations are not what the obama administration or any other administration is advocating. it is different. and we don't represent them, they don't speak for us, we don't speak for them. but i think, you know, i have -- i believe that this administration is on record as supporting the policy of the afghan government. they have said that several times. they have said it here and in kabul several times. and we heard it in kabul and here as well. the thing is, you know, how are you going to do it? i don't think there is anybody who says there is any solution accept the political solution. everybody agrees on that. everybody says they agree on that. the thing is how are you going to do it? you know, this contact with the

taliban, the ideas that are floating around and so on, are great. they are useful. absolutely. but at the end of the day, you've got to go to one channel. many of you, i'm sure, have followed what they did a couple of years ago, or three years ago in kenya when he was, you know, having left the united nations, he was asked to mediate the terrible consequences of bad election that's taken place there. the most important thing he did was to demand from everybody that he was the only channel. he didn't say that, you know, only i can contribute and can work out solution. he said, you know, i need a lot

of support. but that support has got to come to me, and we have got to have one channel -- one channel of -- this is what you need. this is what does not exist yet in afghanistan. so that is what you need. you need that one channel for, you know, this political solution that everybody is talking about. >> could i just add no negotiator specified the concessions that he's prepared to make at the beginning of the negotiation. [laughter] >> hillary clinton that has said accepting the constitution, lying down their arms, and cutting ties is the objective of the negotiation. that means it's our opening position. nobody gets their entire opening position in any negotiation. so if you agree to a negotiation and you set out your opening position, you are implicitly stating a willingness to make compromise at least on some

points. most of those, of course, are decisions that the afghans are going to make, rather than the united states. clearly the united states government is going to have to prepare for two futures. one in which the future there is an agreement, and the second is a future in which there isn't an agreement. things like talking about the base structure in afghanistan post2014, clearly is appropriate in a world in which there's no agreement and on which some continuing u.s. and nato and international support is going to be required for a government that's going to be counterrering an insurgency. clearly the alternative of an agreement no insurgency is the requirement for much of all of that. all the government can talk about at the moment is the default future. which is there's not an agreement. but they are clearly indicated a willingness to go down the other path. i think that's the most you can expect of them at the moment. >> one last question in the

back. >> doug brooks at the international stability operations association. my question is on how the west is going to accept this. there's a lot of real games in terms of women rights and so on. obviously there's going to be have to be some sort of compromise to come up with an agreement? do you have enough assurance from western nations that they are willing to allow some of the advances to be pushed back a bit? [sirens in the background] >> you know, what we hear from the western nations, if you are talking about europe and canada, what we here mostly is that they are in a hurry to go away. that is most important thing that we hear from them. yes, of course, they insist on protecting the gains and the human rights and the women's

rights that have been achieved in afghanistan. but i think their main concern is to get out. i -- you know, i'm not sure, you know, how people view, you know, these gains that have been made in afghanistan. i think lived a little bit over there, these gains are modest. and they are the subject of debate amongst the afghans and i think what is very, very important is that you have now large constituencies that are fighting for those rights. and that is what is durable. and that is what is important. that is what is not going to go away. you know, when we started to discuss about human rights, there have been very, very serious arguments with my

colleagues in geneva who wanted to establish a very big office there to defend afghan rights. and i told them no, i think what we need is support the afghans to set up their own organization. and since 2002, you have a strong human rights organization let by a woman that has now offices in every single city in afghanistan, and they are fighting for their rights. one day they win, one day they lose, there are still lots, lots, lots of problems. womens rights, you know, are very, very far behind what this afghan's want them to be. there are still a lot of women who burn themselves to death because they are forced to be married. there are still many, many problems. so those dragons are going to continue. they are going to continue

whether you have peace or not. i think that they will have a much better chance of moving forward, however slowly, in a peaceful environment than they have now in a war environment. >> thanks very much for joining us today. [applause] [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> coming up in just a moment, we'll go live to the brookings institutions for a discussion on the new role of civil society in egypt, a country that's building a new government there. and we expect speakers at the event to include representatives of the youth movement in egypt. we'll have live coverage in about eight minutes. it started at 1:30 eastern right here on c-span2.

>> and the 3:45 eastern on c-span, a group of city mayors actually we're going to move on to a discussion later on here on c-span2 from former chilean president michelle bachelet that set up to empower women across the world. tonight 8 eastern here on c-span2. >> at 9:40, we'll show you a discussion on how the news media covers appeals court and how that's changing with the popularity of new media sources. >> live saturday possible gop presidential candidates, haley barbour, newt gingrich, mr.

santorum, mr. cain, and mrs. bachmann in des moines.

>> once again live at the brookings institution. we're standing by for a discussion on the role of civil society in egypt as the country puts together a new government. a constitutional referendum was held last saturday and parliament elections set for june. live discussion getting june way -- getting underway at 1:30 at c-span. early today we got an update from a reporter in libya. >> host: joining us now ms. sly on the "washington post" in tripoli. what's happened in the last couple of hours in libya? >> guest: well, it's pretty quiet here this morning.

we don't have much activity here until the night time. last night we had a lot of exposures. i've accounted more that we've had on any previous night. it seems that the strikes have intensified in the capitol last night. >> host: ms. sly, what's it like being in tripoli? where are you staying? are you able to get out of the hotel? do american forces know where the foreign correspondents hotel is? >> guest: well, i hope that american, british, and french forces know where our hotel is. i believe they do. they see tv networks from this location every night. we are in a hotel on the edge of the city. it's not outside the city, but it's on the edge. sometimes they are allowed out, sometimes we are not. on some days, they will post guards at the gate, turn us

back, and telic we are not allowed. -- tell us we are not allowed to go out. others days they don't stop us. if you do something in some security forces is suspicious, there's a high chance of getting detained. if you just walk around in central areas and keep low pro file and talk to people, you can do that. >> host: now what's the mood? are you getting a slice of the mood in tripoli? >> guest: well, we have the noisy gadhafi supporters that gather in the square and chant slogans and pickup trucks and go through the streets at night and during the day chanting the gadhafi slogans. they are noisy. you can't avoid them or mistake their presence. chanting for gay -- gadhafi.

if you do go out, you find an awful lot of people saying they welcome the airstrikes, they hope it means the end of gadhafi. to be a poll of where opinion lies and who's in the majority is impossible, of course. but those certainly think there is a deeply divided city. >> host: liz sly, your story in the "washington post" along with mary beth chariton, fears of humanitarian crisis in libyan city grow. tell us about this story? >> guest: yes, all of the attention so far has been focused on benghazi where they are fighting a frontline war gadhafi forces. there's a situation much closer to the capitol where levels have been in control, but gadhafi forces have encircled them, bombarding the town, managed to penetrate the town in the days

since the no-fly zone was declared, which calls into question how effective it is when you are dealing with forces that are using tanks and guns to go up to people. and people in the city are telling us that really conditions there are quite dire with the hospital over flowing with injured people and medical supplies running out. >> host: liz sly, final question. you say you have heard the bombings, how close are some of the air raids? >> guest: how close? >> host: to where you are. >> guest: nothing that's happened particularly close to us. we know there have been some strikes on air bases in the cost and we're far from the coast. the closes strikes have been on gadhafi's compound. that was hit the other night. that's about an mile and a half away from here. and we did hear a couple of reasonably close strikes last night. which i must say from where we

are we've only heard very distance exmotions and aircrafts which come close to us. >> host: liz sly, we appreciate you joining us from tripoli, libya. thank you very much. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> with that report this morning, france's foreign minister says the international military against gadhafi's forces could last days or weeks, but not months. the allies countries are trying to work out who will run, and other expressing concerns that the military effort will drag on. live pictures from the brookings institution this afternoon where we are expecting speakers to discuss the new role of civil society in egypt. the country is building a new country. we expect to hear from representatives of the youth movement in egypt, a

constitutional referendum was held last saturday. parliament elections are scheduled to get under way in june. this discussion set to start in about five minutes. we'll have live coverage of that here on c-span2. i also want to let you know we'll go live to the united nations for security council meetings on the enforcement of libya resolution. that resolution establishing a no-fly zone in authorized member states to take all necessarily measures to protect the civilians of libya. live coverage here on c-span2 while that gets under way. while we wait for this discussion, back to this morning's "washington journal" about a discussion about the campaign in libya and the impact on foreign policy here in this country and in libya and the region. >> midway between the u.s. capitol and the white house is the national archives on constitution and pennsylvania avenue and part of the national archives complex where, of course, america's most important

documented are housed. this morning we have a group of students from four states, part of the c-span -- part of the close up program here on "washington journal." they are all ap students, mark ginsburg, former ambassador to morocco, now a lawyer, appreciate your time. >> good to be with you, good morning. >> what's our mission in libya? what's the end game? >> depending on who you ask. if you are asking the french defense minister, it's regime change, if you are asking president carter, it's a humanitarian mission to prevent gadhafi's forces from harming innocent libya civilians, if you ask the pentagon, it's to enforce a no-fly zone. if you ask susan rice and others it probably is to join a coalition of country that is are willing to take this battle all the way to force mr. gadhafi to give up power and perhaps leave libya.

so you have a unfortunate, inconsistency among our allies and within this administration as to exactly what those objectives are. >> so is that part of the problem? we talked earlier about the letter that john boehner, the speaker of the house sent to the president, and among the questions, what's our mission? how long will we be there? even if it's limited focus, it still has the potential of costing american blood and treasure. >> i think it's clear from the congressional perspective and the argumentation whether or not the congress should have authorized the united states military forces to participate in the imposition of the no-fly zone. the president has declared that the united states is going to take a back seat role in the coming days. but there's been enormous confusion among our other allies, the allies, the arab league, britain and france over who is going to be responsible for the command and control of

the operation, the military operation going forward. the french don't want nato, the british want nato, the germans have absolutely no interest in this. other nato allies are not contributing to the cause and the united states is largely the 800 pound elephant in the room when it comes to the type of military capacity that we can bring to bear in libya at least in the air. >> so why go forth? >> from today's "washington journal ". now live to the discussion on the role of civil society in egypt at the brookings institution this afternoon. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> all right. good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. welcome to the brookings institution. my name is john page, i'm a senior fellow in the global economy and development program for the brookings institution. it's my privilege to be the moderator of this panel this afternoon. the topic is the role of civil society in a new egypt, which is a topic that i think is both timely and important. i was in oxford over the weekend and speaking with a friend, and he said to me, you know, i think the jasmin revolution and the changes in egypt really boil down to two things, jobs and justice.

and i thought, well, one, it's oxford, it's a clever alliteration, but two it's also quite a penetrating thought. and i think today as we discuss amongst ourselves and with you the issues of civil society in egypt, we have representatives from the business community, civil society organizations, from the youth movements in egypt, we need to keep in mind the issues of jobs and justice, the hope the panelist will speak a bit to the role of civil society and trying to deliver both. without further ado, let me introduce the panelist. their biographies are in their hand out. i won't try to summarize their academic or professional histories. but they are a very distinguished group. i'll begin at my far right with shadi hamid who is the director of research for the brookings doha center in qatar. he's quitting us -- visiting us

from qatar. sitting to my right is is -- wee thinking of the diplomat actually who has had a long career which is the modern leading business associations in the country. to my immediate left, jackie kameel who is the director of the civil society in egypt. to her left is awais sufi, and finally at the far end of the table is awais sufi who is -- sorry, amira maaty who is in the international endowment for

democracy. quite a range of expertise and interest on the panel. we'll begin with asking each of the panelist to make five minutes of remarks according to their own interest and themes. let me begin then with jackie kameel to my immediate left. >> hi, everyone. i speak about expectations of the civil society and the needs that would actually help us do a better job in the new egypt. so basically the role of the civil society is for me is identifying gaps and issues and trying to come up with solutions to help close the gaps or sort them. for example, in the area of job creation and employment, we would do two things. one is creating an entrepreneurial ecosystem to support the creation of new jobs and also we would help filling the available jobs in the

market. and filling the available jobs in the market are two types. whether you help link like student values to those jobs, or for the vocational track student or those that opted out of education, because there's the culture of people not wanting to have the jobs, we work with employees to try to secure a good quality and better terms for the labor. to do such a job, we basically need some key areas of support. with regards to government, we basically need the environment. with this, we mean one regulation for transparency, rather than for control. we've been talking in the morning about minister, and how much the role of it has been hindering the progress of the work of the civil society. we want them to, yes, oversee what we are doing but in a way they are making sure that we are

transparent, rather than just checking each and every step that we make. two is the law versus the implementation or putting this low end application in enforcement. the law might not be as strict as how it's being implemented. the minister actually imposing more restrictions on the law that is available. for example, there are some rights for the ngos that they can't actually get because the minister is enforcing more restrict rules on the ngos. we also care to have a space to operate and openness to partnership between government and public institutions and the civil society. we want to be pursued as a partner, rather than a competitor or challenge or pin pointing the mistakes or issues or actually trying to help the government do a better job. we want to be perceived as an

partner. and there has been these issues and mubarak era whenever the ngo was doing a good job and becoming larger in size than you can impact a large number of people, government wanted to take the credit of the work that's being done. we are seeing many of the civil society organization being you could cannot buy the government institution. from the donor side. we want to see more support from bottom up approach to the government. we want to see donors supporting locally government and the position of these where the best people to create solutions for them because it would take so many things into consideration that the designers are also designing solutions and closed room were not take these things

into consideration. also with regards to supporting the ability, as we were mentioning in the morning, we want to see support going to the creation of institutions rather than only programs that would go do a five-year intervention, and after those five years are over and the funding is gone, then everything would not even go back to how it was. it will go back to worse than how it was because you created an imbalance that you can't continue supporting the service and the people are not at this balance that they were on before. and effectiveness of the donor dollars. we see a huge number of grants with a lot of huge amount of money that's -- it's being -- i mean at each level especially with the international organization involvement that's 10-30% of the involvement that

would go to the beneficiaries. we need to work on new mechanisms that need to make sure we maximize the benefits of the beneficiaries rather than having all of these layers. specifically for the youth led ngos, i think we need to start seeing change in the patronizing country that have been prevailing in egypt over the past many years. civil society used to be dominated by other people, by certain profile of people and we want to see this changing and we want to see more space given to youth so that they can actually do the change that we want to do. talking about the combination in part, we actually have been since the evolution have been trying to do two things. one is score the leading and local internality in egypt, and externally with the egyptians.

for example, last week we had this event the egyptian american community event forum where we are trying to engage egyptians living here in the states to actually have a responsibility in the role in shaping the new egypt. in egypt, we're having -- we have one the leaders in creating the egypt -- the youth -- the egyptian youth -- sorry, the separation of egyptian youth led ngos. it trying to create a coalition of youth-led ngos and making sure the role is -- they actually talk to each other, understand what they are doing, and the impact of the work is maximized. i hope i'm not over my five minutes. >> thank you. very good. actually. [laughter] >> now to amira maaty who will talk to us from a business

perspective. >> good afternoon. i guess this is the new egypt and getting an egyptian to talk for five minutes is quite a challenge. i was asked to talk about business negotiations and what they are doing now on how they should be looking at egypt and the long run. i represent egypt since 1982, we have 1800 members and serve the members in the business community. on the short term obviously as association person is the dominant way forward in egypt and anywhere. but there are so many challenges at the moment in egypt on the economic front and the business front, that there are common issues to all of them. and we have identified that we really need to support our members in the different sector

sectors. we've been talking today about the civil society and the role. but there are issues now at the present time in egypt that have a tremendous effect on where it succeeds. it's critical that we do everything that makes it succeed. for instance, i want to give some examples of what we are doing. there's obviously was a huge problem in the financial sector. the banks foreclosured for a long time, the stock market opened only yesterday, and our members had issues of opening lcs because western banks or other banks were looking at egypt as a race, so they were not confirms letter of credits. there were transfer issues, the central bank was making sure there were no huge transfers out of egypt, especially for those who have earned the

investigations. so it was very hard to transfer any funds out of the country. even for business issues. foreign exchange, it's crept out on the first couple of days that the banks open about two to three billion dollars left the country. then the central bank stepped in. we were from 5.8 pounds to the dollars we are now to 5.95. i think all expectation is it will go over to 6 pounds something. we've been helping our members or talking to our members especially in the tourism sector. tourism has suffered tremendously. that has an affect on people who

work in the hotels and the salaries are low and they get all of their income from the 12% service charge that tourist pay. so you have thousands and thousands of people who suddenly without income. also the indirect affect of restaurants and so on and so forth. so working with our tourism sector, we've been work, the government how to tourism companies can be relieved of some of the burdens and so on. the issues on the logistic support had huge problems. just trucking there was a curfew for a long time. there is still actually a curfew from midnight to 6 a.m. that puts panic in the works when you are trying to ship stuff from alexandria to cairo or to the south and so on. so we've been working with the higher council of the military to get special permissions for

trucks to go through during the night and so on. awareness, we've been working were strongly with just making it known that we are involved in the politics, but we get involved in the awareness. huge discussions on the constitution now or the ref rann -- referendums, what happens after yes or no? parliament first or presidential first and so on. there are obviously many, many strikes by workers and, you know, this was a revolution of people wanting better pay, better justice, and better treatment. we have to or we have been working with our members to talk -- to look at human rights of the employees really. i mean there are disgraceful companies that are paying very, very low wages to people. and that should -- we've been

working with them on how to increase that or treat the employees better and remain in the workplace. on the long term, it's the huge gap between what the companies want and what the education system is bringing out. i think business associations, we ourselves have a huge education program. and we embed a lot of the u.s. associations curriculum in some of our educations and so on. business match making. try to get match making between u.s. companies and egyptian companies, all this for employment. you need business, you need private sector to be back at work to get people employed. we've been promoting work ethics and so on. capacity building of business association is something that is so, so essential. there's so many business

associations that are voluntary run and with maybe a charismatic leader when that leader leaves, the association collapses. so we really need a capacity building of professional staff who can do the research and can do the pr and events and member and so on. getting business to know how to fund raise and how to do membership development advocacy and coalition building. all of this has to be done by the business associations, and it can be. i just needs the encouragement of the private sector, the members, and the whole world quite honestly. we had a huge part in tahrir square. and the bigger the party, the bigger the hangover. we are now suffering the hangover, but hopefully whether come out of it quicklily.

thank you. >> thank you, hisham fahmy. next is awais sufi from his perspective as an ngo in the u.s. will talk about what the external community maybe looking for and trying to do in the coming months and years. >> thank you very much, john. and thank you to the brookings institution for hosting us today. the international youth foundation is a probably ngo beside. we work in several countries around the world. we have been working in egypt alongside a whole host of ngos, local companies, international companies, and of course to the extent possible, government. as we have watched what has unfolded in egypt over the last few months we have been like everyone else, very excited about the possibilities. we have a seen a youth-led revolution. our own approach is ans

asset-based approach to use development. how can you use youth assets to confront challenges? obviously the youth of egypt has been instrumental, you know, in changing the game in egypt. now i think the real key can be how can international organizations such as ourselves and many others represented here in washington globally support youth as well as all of egyptian society moving forward. in that respect, i wanted to talk about two, three, our four things that are relevant from our perspective at the international administration. he mentioned what the international community can do. the first that i'd like to mention is bringing in new consensus-based approaches, public private partnership building approaches to push forward egyptian development. as you have seen from the last few months, there is an enormous number of voices through institutions, through individuals, that are out there

that are really -- have been silent for a long time. or if they have been speaking, they haven't been speaking fully clearly or as loudly as they would like. the key now will be however to create a framework for that type of dialogue to go forward. i think there are some internationally tested models and approaches that many of the civil society organizations have adopted that we should be looking at to integrate so that we can have a systemic, consensus based discussion on what is it people are doing, how do they perceive gaps? and how they can work together to address the gaps. these types of dialogues are challenges. how is it we can build momentum around concrete avenues for change, particularly now that the aftermath, the hangover as hisham mention, is in effect.

let's see what aspirin or medication that we can put in for immediate relief. second of all, i would say another place that we really need to be focused quite heavily on is capacity building for civil society. the mubarak regime had systemically, comprehensively decimated the ngo sector. it was part of the way of assuring adherence to the order. at this point, we have an opening. however, those organizes are going to need just the core institutional capacity building support that rich civil societies, you know, are able to benefit from. things that are very simple, very practical, budgeting, financial management, human resources, operational strategy, the basics about how you build and grow and sustain an organization so you can create a long-term enabling environment for the development of the country alongside of the institutions, i think we need to also be focusing on specific

technical and programmatic areas. they are hugely important, there is business interest in stimulus, international donor relations or interest in stimulus. how can we egypt the civil society organizations with the capacity to help support those things along the way. in the same token, kind of the other side of the coin, we need to be looking at creating and enabling the environment for the creation of the programs particularly around employment and entrepreneurship. how is it that the international community can work in close partnership with local organizations, help build them, help them build their capacity and ultimately their leadership capabilities to take forward very, very concrete ways of ensuring quality you'll -- quality outcomes in terms of employment and how you conduct concrete and labor market assistance and how you develop and design curricula modules

that ensure long-term success in the marketplace for a young person that's entering into a new job. and then on the other side in terms of entrepreneurship, similarly, how is it you create access to financing alongside of long business development and support services where a young person or anybody for that matter can achieve good advice on how to build and grow for a country that's need in dire needs of economic activity. these are the types of thing that is are out there that needs to be pushed forward. the last thing i'll mention is just that i'll thing one real opportunity and this will take creative thinking with strong partnership and really leadership is the idea of leveraging the enormous energy and excitement around the rebuilding of egypt. egypt is a country that i've worked with many years. it's just amazing. this is a place that is amongst

of the oldest civilization in human history. maybe the oldest. they have such an enormous cultural and historical foundation to be built upon. i was amazed in cairo to see how clean the streets were for the first time. the fact that individuals took up the responsibility in absence of other formal authority to keep up their communities to protect their communities, this is an energy that can be built on. and it's something that we need to look at models of what we would call service learning. how is that we can use this type of framework where people are excited in building the communities and developing opportunities for the employment, entrepreneurship, or other redevelopment initiatives. i think that can push us in the

right direction. hopefully that will start us out. i look forward to any comments from you as well. >> thanks, awais. one the deeply held values of egyptian and the arabic culture is hospitality. he's worried that people who are standing in the back of the room that could be sitting. if you would like to go on and have a seat, we are going to have another hour. we would feel better, i would feel better, and the members of the panel would feel more comfortable if you were seated. [laughter] >> now turn to amira maaty who is with the national endowment for democracy who has had a long history of involvement in the region and egypt is going to offer some thought on where we go from here in terms of

building democracy. >> thank you, i'm going to focus my comments on civil society organization that have worked on democracyization, political form, and human rights. also what other panelist talked about in terms of capacity building. the revolution of environment in egypt, the civil society was restricted by the regulatory climate and security climate that affected their ability to move and operate. they were also affected by a population largely seen as apathetic. this has changed. now there is a huge opportunity for civil society organizations to service the link and state society at large. a couple of key opportunities that exist now for civil society organizations in egypt. the first is setting the agenda during the transition process. :

>> and also engaging with the sectors that have largely been closed off to civil society, including universities, student clubs, and, of course, the media and especially broadcast media which has been very much restricted. and another point i would add is ensuring greater transparency on the part of decision makers

especially at the local levels where there still elements from the former regime. i would add to the accountability and transparency that there's a need to go beyond monitoring policy and practice but also to look at fiscal policy and expenditures. which is an area that needs to be developed within the interests of society. finally, i would add that there's one sector that has been largely absent from the larger political reform and that's the small and medium enterprises which will play a very important role in linking kind of the economic realities with political reforms. there have been some inklings of associations that have developed within that sector but they need to play a more active role in the policy setting. in terms of the challenges that are facing these groups that need to be addressed in this period, as jacqui mentioned, there were three categories of priorty's that we had identified for supporting civil site effort.

one is supporting coordination efforts. the second is scaling up successful models and '30s measures for sustainability. in terms of supporting ordination efforts, it's important to note that there are already some coalitions that are forming with an egyptian civil society. there's been some very good examples such as the front to defend protesters that was established actually a year ago to supply legal and medical assistance and follow-up on and report detentions of political activists and protesters. there's another coalition of about 200 develop and and civic organizations that has been forming to basically promote active and informed engagement in civic education. there's also a coalition of 16 human rights organizations within two days of mubarak's resignation issued a roadmap with concrete recommendations sector by sector on the reforms

that need to take place during the transition process and have created an actual player to correspond with the roadmap. there's there's also a coordination committee that unites between the different coalitions. so there are some local organic coalitions that are forming. there's still some division within civil society, but these are issues that need to be support. i would caution against supporting them financially. they had and what you on a voluntary basis. the greater need is to support him through technical assistance. in terms of strengthening linkages between different civil society actors, this is another important point for coordination efforts, over recent years there's been a blurring of lines between the different forms of civic institutions. there's been a blurring of the lines between ngos, political parties, media. there needs to be a better definition and an understanding of how they each work together as part of the puzzle to reach a collection -- a collective objection.

i think they're hopefully with the regulatory environment, hopefully there'll be opportunities to open that up. there may be a morphing of these different organizations and groups who found it ineffective to work as political parties or civic or unions. instead of registering as unofficial ngos, they could potentially open and register as different institutions. in terms of scaling up, there's definitely most of the civic and political organizations have been consolidated in the cairo and greater cairo region. there are some groups have emerged over recent years, especially groups that were linked between local governments and constituent needs. so there's going to be a need to expand beyond the capital area and to support the civic and political initiatives. here also i would caution against scaling up by over 40 organizations as mentioned

before. many of the institutions are quite weak. we have to be very cognizant of the abilities of these organizations to absorb additional funding. finally in terms of policy impact, you know, instead of working in silo, the impact of these groups on a larger base. much money has been spent on civic education programs in egypt, but they've been limited to a certain group of beneficiaries because there hasn't been the ability to institutionalize them, for them to be adopted within policy and implemented on a larger scale. so ngos have to push on that level as well. in terms of sustainability, my colleagues who have touched upon the need for capacity building. there are incredible groups of activists and great innovation and creativity among civil society leaders in egypt. but this week institutions. there's a huge need for building democratic sustainable institutions. and part of that will include the legislative performance we

talked about, about opening up the space that have restrained these types of institutions. thank you. >> thank you very much. and last but shortly not least, shadi hamid has been observing and comment on political movements in egypt for some time. and will give us some thoughts on civil society and the political evolution. >> okay. so here's the thing. i mean, even in the best of circumstances democratic transitions are notoriously messy, uncertain and unpredictable so i think we have to be aware of that from the get-go. but looking at past transitions as you might expect the role of civil society, it's extreme important in ensuring the transition process moves forward and that the demand of the transition or the revolution are actually fulfilled, not just in the short term but over a longer period of time. this is where civil society organizations face a major

challenge because they've been oriented around opposition. they've never had a stake in policymaking and that's very different than, say, the role of civil society here in the u.s. where civil society is a partner with the government sometimes in terms of helping pass legislation, meeting with congress, policymakers and so one. so we are talking about a shift in the model. and we are really talking about, you know, 60 years in opposition, and all of a sudden we're asking groups to decide how they're going to transition to a very new scenario. so this is unprecedented, and a lot of these groups are running on the go. so there is going to be a learning curve there. you know, maybe a word about youth coalition. they were obviously at the forefront of these revolutions and a lot of people are watching what they're going to be up to in the coming phase. and this is where we will see some major challenges for them.

for example, if you look at the eastern european colored revolutions so the major youth movement in serbia, and after slobodan milosevic was overthrown, they had to think about what are we going to do when the new serbia. there was a lot of intro division about whether they should stay -- whether they should stay outside of the system and play the role of government watchdog, or to actually take part in the political process and maybe even in government. eventually they formed a political party but the only 11.6% of the vote in the subsequent election. now that youth coalition and groups in egypt are thinking about that and there's a discussion about whether or not they should take part in political parties, that's an important lesson to remember. and if these groups want to become ineffective political forces they're going to have to talk about not only what they are against, but provide a

positive constructive vision for each of the future and get into details and a vision. and maybe that's one area we have been lacking. of course, it's very early on. it's just been slightly over a month since the revolution happened. as amira said, civil society can play a very important role in setting the agenda. and up until now, i think one problem we have seen is that these civil society organizations have gotten sucked into this debate about the referendum. and that was the number one focus. and because of that, they haven't looked at some of the more medium and longer term issues that in my view might be more crucial. and now that the referendum actually passed their put in a difficult position. we're going to parliamentary elections and presidential within six months. so the timeframe has become shorter. it, for example, civil society can play a major role in talking about a literal design, this is one thing i've been harping on a

lot about, what electoral system is egypt going to have? there hasn't been a robust discussion about that as of yet. currently come egypt has a winner takes all majority system similar to what we have in the u.s. this is not a good system for small parties. it almost makes it impossible for small parties to win. and it actually benefits the larger, well organized parties like the brotherhood or the remnants of the old national democratic party. so if we're talking have to have an inclusive political transition, we want a smaller political parties and make sure that they have a stake in the political system. how do you do that? you have a proportional representation system. so even if they get 10% of the vote they will not be locked out. they will have 10% of the representation. and the fact that we haven't had this conversation is troubling.

but that's precisely the kind of thing that civil society can take the lead on. but again this is not easy because egypt hasn't had to have that discussion for 60 years. civil -- okay. [inaudible] >> is that -- [inaudible] let me -- [laughter] so this is the kind of role --

[inaudible] that takes research. that's one area -- so, just one last point on this. in terms of learning from past transitions, this isn't the first time a country has gone through a transition. and there are other democracies that went to their transitions recently like indonesia for example, or the latin america country that had to do with a lot of these same issues. this is where i think civil society in egypt can learn from those past mistakes and lessons. we have to think of ways to bring those groups together. egyptian counterparts should be meeting with the eastern european counterparts, whether in the nation counterparts, and having a discussion about how they can play a more

constructive role in the coming phase. i will just close with one last thought, i think it's important to flag for discussion, is we talk about civil society a lot here. we talk a lot -- we talk about civil society our lot here in washington and ngos and all of that. but there's always an elephant in the room, because what's the biggest ngo in egypt? the biggest ngo in egypt is the brotherhood. i think that the conversation has become so focused around secular and liberal ngos that we are losing sight that many ngos in egypt, if not most, our faith-based. similar to actual to the u.s., the role that churches play, providing charity and other things of benefit to the 20. so i think we also have to have a discussion about how to secular ngos engaged with the islamic counterparts, and also

from a u.s. standpoint, how does the u.s. government engage with islamic liquidity ngos in terms of perhaps provide assistance, maybe funding is a little bit idealistic, but there have to be be some interfaith there. and up until now we haven't had that discussion either. so i will just close there. thank you. speak of thanks, shadi. and thank you for handling the microphone drama so well. one of the fun things about being asked to moderate a panel here at brookings is that i could ask the first couple of questions. and i will, but let me assure you that we would then move to the audience to further ask questions. but i'm going to assert my right as chair. just ask two or maybe one depending on how long the panelists take. as one watched the coverage unfold of the events in tunisia and in egypt, one could escape a

sense that part of the issue of justice was very much linked to the question of the economic model. in both countries. and both countries are going to a process of economic reform, liberalization, and an opening to the private sector. and as hisham pointed out, unless one gets the economy going again, the issue of jobs which was very much at the center of this will not be resold. but for a long time sympathetic viewer of the region, i think there's always been a lingering sense in many parts of these societies that the kind of economic system that came out of liberalization effort wasn't an open system. it wasn't a fair system. it wasn't a just system. and i think at this moment there is a real risk that there could be a backlash against the very engine that will create jobs, which is the private sector. i was one in the panelists had some views on how civil society

in a way can help balance the need for a vibrant, active job creating private sector with what i still think is a very deep-seated sense that there has to be a certain degree of social justice. in the system as well. and so i think let me just turn to whichever of the panelists would like to try to respond to i hope all five of them from everybody's perspectives will. but this balance between we really does will be need jobs and witty business and we did business people, but we need an open system in which the aspirations of people to come businessmen. and the way in which businessmen operate themselves create a sense of justice and fairness for all. [laughter] >> let me try, john. this is a great question and a very tough one. and i kind of wish you wouldn't have taken a moderate prerogative to go first, but in any event, let me at least start the dialogue because i don't

think there's an easy answer to your question. it is clear that, that the liberalization that has gone forward in the last many years has resulted in substantial disparity. in terms of the economic classes that benefits substantially in the passenger of egyptians that did not. and that could be looked upon as a fundamental deficiency in the system of economic liberalization, or from my perspective and candidly i'm not an economist by trade, so i'm sure there's good educated opinions out there that can validate this or perhaps, you know, be the contrary. but in many respects it seems that liberalization was yet just another tool used by the government to essentially extract wealth and take from the common person. that's not to say that liberalization wouldn't have potentially had challenging implication in terms of

disparity. certainly an united states and other places around the world we are seeing increasing divides of socioeconomically. but nontheless, when you have a system that enables monopolists to force privatization of major and to serve major government functions and wealth, and benefit greatly from the wealth perspective, it's going to cause a substantial, you know, disparities. and also a great deal of antagonism towards private sector which i think is the source of your question. in terms of where civil society can help, i'm not sure there is again a perfect answer here, but i would say that we really need to be focusing on encouraging open, transparent approaches to leveling the playing field. so as we look at the creation of new systems of promoting economic growth, of trade

liberalization, we need to be looking at industries, sorry, at rules of the road that are applied fairly to all. and we need to do that as we do in all societies in a way that is consensus-based and open and transparent. but at the same time do it fairly quickly which is the big challenge we have here because we can't be twiddling our thumbs, doodling over new regulatory regimes for years and years here. things have got to get moving. solsona i think we've got to create a framework in which the rules of the road are made clear. that are open to all, and they are creating as i said before, enabling and violent for the type of industries that want to move forward, to actually create jobs. the last thing i would say, one of the things that certainly we have observed in terms of her own work in egypt is that so much of the economic growth was really within the real estate sector and was in kind of non-job creating sectors.

and it is a big challenge in the respect that you are having large, you know, investments being made and they inflate growth from some perspective, but how can you encourage for example, tourism are other types of industries that are perhaps more labor-intensive to get people to work and make you feel comfortable that there is a vibrant private sector. >> thanks to be the first to volunteer. i heard a little grumbling from hisham so i will turn to him and ask him if he wants to respond. i would remind people that he had a number of very good suggestions in his opening remarks that speak precisely to the question that i just asked. >> i always grumble. [laughter] >> let's look at 2010. egypt for the third year best performing emerging market. best finance minister in the world. how much fdi, 13, before the

economic crisis. 13 billion. one of the best countries to hold up during the economic crisis. raised table exchange-rate. what went wrong? in thinking a lot about that, not just me but a lot of people, and the doctors the finance minister kept saying we need three years for the economic growth of seven to 8% to trickle down. it didn't trickle down fast enough. and i go back to what you were saying, it's a level playing field. it wasn't level because of the huge, huge bureaucracy. that is in the egyptian system. how many people in business here need to know the cabinet

minister to get his stuff done? you don't. in egypt to get through the bureaucracy, if you knew somebody who knew somebody who knew the minister, get your paper sign and that's how you moved along. so it wasn't level playing field. and we have to get rid of the bureaucracy. it can take three years for an article go to open a restaurant. it just doesn't work that way. and i think this is some of the stuff that should be done very, very quickly, for anybody, any entrepreneur who wants to do a project can do it very quickly without having to know anybody, without getting visits from 10 different regulatory authorities do, you know, you are doing this wrong, you're doing this right, you know, until you bride or something. so he needs to be done quickly and i'm not sure how you break

7000 years of bureaucracy very quickly. but i agree, and i think the private sector has a huge stake in this, and they have a huge stake in making it work for their employees, and for sticking to egypt in the present time. a lot of the egyptian companies, a lot of american companies and others have made a lot of money in egypt, and this is the time may be to sacrifice a little and to hold on until we get through this time. you mentioned tourism. i hope the u.s. removes the ban on travel to egypt. it's one of the few countries that still has that man. and it not just a terse, it affects expatriates working with companies in egypt. so on and so forth. so there are many things that can be done. while taking longer, thank you. >> i will talk specifically

about the area of job creation. we basically have, i will set up for them a. one is trying to improve the quality of education that the graduates will have. so trying to help build entrepreneurs, but in general entrepreneurs. research and development has another very important thing that we try to support. foster a country that research and development we don't have to keep doing what we're doing at the same exact industries we have, but we want to create like new sectors and supports young people to start their own businesses. the culture of an general conway of offices inside the public universities and we tried to work with students on understanding that you don't have to graduate and look for job immediately.

you can actually start your own business. instead you getting a job you can create her own business and have jobs of your own. support for those entrepreneurs to actually survive the first few years, two to three years, and the need is a huge need in interest. nahdet el mahrousa is an incubator and so. we need to see board incubators for business enterprises. and the mobilization of resources whether that is knowledge, financial resources, technical support him mentors, all these things are things that will create an ecosystem to support entrepreneurship. actually a creation of more jobs in egypt. especially among youth. thanks. >> anyone else? okay. well, now it's your turn. what we're going to do, yes, it's going to be a lively -- i think what we'll try to do is

take three or four questions, if you can keep them short we can take more of them. can i ask you to identify yourself, wait until one of our people comes with a microphone so that you can also be heard outside the room, and then we will let a panel respond to questions as appropriate. so, let me start with the professor went to start before my questions. >> abraham, georgetown university, way back. i'm in there just now. -- i in the americas now. i think that the title for this very important session off to have focused on something else other than the roles. the reason for this is that ngos in egypt had been

established a long time ago, but they had been weekend because of the application of a term that we know in economics, during the gold standard was observed that the coins was less content of gold, circulate and the coins with more gold content were melted and sold in the market. and, therefore, there was a very important law that came and said, which said that the bad currency drives good currency up with speculation. i may modify this in egypt, and

i said, bad people drove good people out of circulation. so, there are many organizatio organizations. they know exactly what they are doing. they were established for a specific role, but they had been handcuffed by the system. one man started. now, he was a prominent sociologist, a professor, was thrown into jail together with other 20 others, simply because they monitored the election and they challenged what mrs. mubarak had said at one time, her statement about the transparency of the election,

they showed without any doubt that the elections were not clear, were not transparent and, therefore, he was thrown into jail. ..

>> this is beside the point, so that is an institution that used to come up with an extremely importantly. in 1929, very important papers that had been published by one in which he was able to show for the first time ever the elasticity of demand, so there are -- i had the honor, myself, of addressing that institution, great institution, in egypt several times, but they have been weakened because of the polarization of the system and

the back of the national democratic party of imposeing syndicate of journalists in egypt, all of those had been weakened because of the corrupt regime that imposed its own people, and therefore, they left the bad people driving good people out of circulation. this is only a comment. >> i believe, which is can you go back to the future? i think it would be useful for the panel to try to answer that, you know, to what extent can the institutions be revitalized, and part of the transition process. let's move to the lady in green who had her hand up and waited patiently. >> hi, i work for an institute,

and i have two questions. the first one and the last couple talks talked and it has shown the difference between the intellectual and ordinary egyptians. what do you think the role is to fill the gap between the intellectual young people and the ordinary egyptians, and the second question is related to the relation of the military counsel because i was watching the news, and there's a couple of unfortunate incidents. like, blows from the cabinet to criminalize the administration in effecting the jobs of the private sector, and there's a lot of question marks raised to that and also women rights and what happened to women over there, so what are the role of civil society to advocate for women rights and make sure they are part of the process. thank you. >> thank you. one more question, a bit towards the black, a woman in blue.

>> i'm robin lieberman, with human rights first. there was cat liesing effects, and this sector sits as freedom of expression and business and entrepreneurship. i'll plug an event on april 6. we're talking about the shut down of the revolution. in the context of civil society, maybe jackie and others can talk about if and how you use social networks sites and what needs to happen to make sure they operate freely for the maximum benefit and many are u.s.-based companies. is there a role for u.s. policy to promote the freedom to connect? >> one more from this side of the room, way in the back. >> thank you. i'm john witman, i teach at the

college. thank you for the presentations. jackie, i was interested in your comment on more bottom-up development. can you show us examples? also, to ask whether the models of cooperatives and particular worker cooperativings play a constructive role here, thank you. >> let's go back to the panel for now, and we probably will have time for another round of questions after that. we'll start at the right and work the way across and let people select questions they choose to answer. if any are unanswered at the end, you have to catch them at coffee after the meeting is over. >> starting with dr. osasis's comment. civil society is not all good, and actually a lot of what we

call civil society wasn't civil society. ngo was always ngo's. they were effectively part of the existing power structure and actually contributed to the perpetuation, and they served the purpose of letting off steam and giving the illusion of some change without the substance of it, and this was actually a big portion of civil society, and many of the organizations are still around. we'll see how they make the transition to revolutionary egypt, but i think that was one of the mistakes with this whole civil society oriented approach of the u.s. and european donors. they were funding organizations that weren't necessarily interested in real structural substantive change. on the issue of the gap between intellectuals and ordinary egyptians, we really saw that with the referendum. i mean, much of secular civil

society voted no, and they were in the minority, and it turns out that, you know, it's the same complaint for some time. they are out of touch. that's concerning. i don't know the solution to that, but going beyond this ngo bubble where people have the same opinions and believe that the majority is with them, but then they are surprised and then they lose by a landslide. again, that's where we get this issue of elite ngo's -- the military i think is also part of your question -- the military is a problem, and i think a lot of us got a little bit too excited about the role and thought that they were really going to be the savior of the people and all of that.

we heard all that kind of rhetoric, but it turns out, the military was a backbone of the regime, and why people thought that was odd to me. the stories of the military are coming out now, very, very depressing, and now they are criminalizing demonstrations, i mean, how much more counterrevolutionary can you be? the rob with civil society trying to interface with the military is the military is a black hole, no clear channels of communication. if there's something bothering you, who do you talk to in the military, and who is that person going do relay the message to and implement that change? no one quite knows, in part, because no one knows much about the egyptian military. it's a somewhat opaque organization, so in that sense, i think it's pretty good they will be out in six months, and that's one the positive results of the yes referendum result that they are out in six months, and we can really start with

civilian rule with a more responsive government in egypt. >> i think, again, maybe the positive thing that's come out recently is that private unions now can be formed, and they don't need the approval of the government. that's something that is positive, and i think there is space now for all these good institutions whether it's come back or others to come back to replace them with good people and good institutions, so i think there is hope there. i'm not pessimistic on the institution -- new institutions -- to come up and fill the void. there's a lot of good young people who are very intellectual, very thoughtful, and i think that's something that's going to happen. maybe i take issue that the people who said no are out of

the -- out of touch just because you lose a referendum or say no and the majorities say yes does not mean you're out of touch. i certainly expected that it was going to be a yes vote. obviously, the muslim brotherhood are much, much more organized than any other institution, and for the others there was the remanents of the ndp pushing people to say yes. whether it's yes or no, i think it was an incredibly good event. it had incredibly huge number of turnout. there were people standing there for, you know, three, four, five kilometers. it was quite a seen, and everybody is coming out with their finger floor res sent.

i mean, i took of picture of mine. [laughter] i take issue about that. what happened in egypt and a friend of mine who is head of cib bank explained it. it was like a bottle of champaigne and kept doing this to it over the years, and then near the two of the last elections, you start smashing the thing on, you know, and two things could have happened. either it breaks and the glass hurts everybody and you get people killed and so on, or the cork comes out and you get a mess, and we're lucky, i think we got the cork out, and it was a mess. [laughter] i think libya is another story. i think the military, honestly,

it's doing -- has tried to do its best. now out of their depths, they are listening to everybody, and everybody is telling them what to do. i'm also a little worried about this new law, but i think because they are listening to people saying, listen, we're not getting the work done. everybody's demonstrating outside their factory trying to get at their bosses, and you know, they want triple salary and so on. that's, i think that's where it's coming from. i wasn't there when that came out, so maybe i'll give them the benefit of the doubt since he's going the other way. [laughter] >> three things, the bottom-up approaches and the examples, usage of facebook media, and a couple things on how to close

the gap between the like intellectuals in egypt and maybe like the less advantaged people. a couple examples is social enterprises, we are -- sorry, okay, that's too close. sorry. those are social enterprises that are basically at the start of phases, so just an idea from a group of people who feel and need in their community. the examples is the development offices, for example, that were started by a group in public universities. those were the first ever created offices in public universities in egypt. it was a need that two graduates of engineering assumed because they graduated, they got good scores, i have all those employers waiting for me. that, of course, was not the case, and it was very clear that

the counterparts graduating from private universities had assistance to support them actually complemented their education with the skills they need with being ready for the job market and so on, and this very group got incubated, and we worked with international foundations to support them with the resources they need and link them with the universities and an advisory board to open the doors at universities, and we were able to create the first development office in a public university. those offices are being run out now to all universities in egypt, and it's a locally grown issue in education. compared to other programs that worked on reforming educational strength and improving education with the amount of money spent on this model opposed to the amount of money i worked on to reform education and the results of this and results of that is,

i mean, there's no point of comparison even, so that's one example. another example is basically people who live in areas where the ninth showers, were basically a huge problem there, and this group of young people came together and decided to instead of just having this issue prevailing in the communities, they would just recycle for agriculture and studied the flowers very well, and understood it was full of very good stuff for making animal feed for example, paper, biogas, and they changed the problem, a very huge one, into something that was very successful and they are building the institution enterprise to start actually recycling of the agriculture waste. those are examples we're talking about. people feel the need in the community and come up with a solution they know will work and

take into consideration ology the things that need to be taken into consideration. they understand the afflictions, the culture, and it's better to support those locally planned initiatives other than just assuming development comes top-down. with the role of institution of networks and media, we -- last year we had a partnership with the yahoo for good foundation, and of course, with other social media yahoo is working with. we were pushed hard to use social media, but it proved very well to connect people and to get them engaged. now about the program raise awareness about the whole idea of social enterprise, for example. before the last program ended, the role of social media impacted so much the awareness of what social network is in

egypt. with google, we have a program to use the program of youtube, for example, to educate people about things, maybe have lessons for the elder ones, but also showing the successes, stories, and so on. basically, raising awareness, educating people, and so on. this is, i think, is the role of the civil society in bridging the gap between the intellectuals and those who are disadvantaged. you use the tools available and the knowledge you have to simplify it to a way you can actually communicate the message in bays that other -- ways that others would understand add -- as well. thank you. >> thank you, and just building on what jackie has said because i think it's similar the approach i take, but maybe from the national ngo perspective to the points that dr. oasis said

you enable the competent extraordinary people already in egypt, the bottom-up development, and les the discussion of bridging the divide between those intellectuals and those, you know, the reality on the ground. from our perspective, the real way to do that is create something i mentioned before, but more detail on it, is you create platforms for those who are best e quipped, best knowledgeable, locally republicked, well-regarded individuals and institutions to play a role in a very constructive and also tangible role in the redevelopment of egypt, and, you know, that's a broad statement, but, you know, it can be sort of broken out into concrete elements that can actually be executed upon very simply, you know, quick, but thorough consul at a timive process -- consultant process. you can integrate the civil society and find who is

respected. right now, that's happening in egypt where you have a bit of a witch hunt happening, of course, but there's individuals who had the respect of the people who had been turned away by the regime initially or left to the regime because they were upset about what was going on, and people knew it. you go around, look for them, think about it, and consult with locals who know what they are doing, and you find those individuals. two other things. one is you create a platform for them to execute on projects and activities with concrete results. pampt of that will be, you know, we talk about international development community about massive sums of money, you know, $165 million put forward by u.s. agency for international development for the redevelopment of egypt. well, that's great, but at the end of the day with low capacity to organizations like we talked about, we need to split that up in $100,000 increments with capacity to build support, technical support to individuals on the ground who are republics

and can excute if given the right platforms and capabilities to do it. finally, stick with it. once they show success, give them more; right? show that they have actually accomplished something and say, wow, it's come forward, you know, the career development model jackie mentioned. it's not small potatoes here, but quite an effort. it took three years to get established in the university environment, this is a university of 200,000 people who didn't have a single job placement center on that campus, formally. it's shocking to us those in the united states who went to higher education that this service didn't exist. once it was established, don't walk away. give it more funds, show the platform you developed has that greater impact so that those individuals you supported can accomplish great thing, and i should mention at this point, there's over 10,000 students going through in one university office plus the outreach offices

they use every year, so there is concrete impacts shown, but you got to actually really be executing in a way that allows that to happen. >> thank you. we could probably spend a day on each of those questions, but i'll take a few of them. fist of the -- first of the role of syndicates. over the last several years, the state closed on the space for those institutions. past judges clubs were led by independent judges leading the judiciary movement and more field under the leadership of the ndp and co-oped by the state. we saw that with other syndicates as well. the regulatory environment made them no longer relevant. the compulsory memberships were certain syndicates that excluded actually a large number of new professionals. for example, journalists and teachers for the most part are hired under temporary contracts. they are not part of the

syndicates. what happened is a lot of indpint activists within the institutions ended up forming independent, again, civic organizations because there was a loophole where ngo's could register as law companies and fall under the radar of the state. i imagine now with the regulatory environment opening up more, we'll probably see more developments. there already were a couple independent unions established over the past couple years #, and i imagine we'll see more of those. in terms of the question on women's rights and supporting women's rights, i mean, women have been an essential part of the reform movement in egypt, even before the revolution. everybody saw them on the square, and before that, there's active women's organizations and the new generation organizations are keen on gender mainstreaming across the programs within the staff and in terms of responding to the programs and including women. i think there's two key things when we talk about women's

rights in egypt. one, it's very important not to accept cosmetic reforms. there's been a lot of cosmetic reforms with women's rights. there's some criticism of that in terms it created a separate ballot. you're not educating or instilling the mentality to nominate women as part of the core candidates. i think one women's rights activist that i spoke to called it a separate car for women. you know, that's something that needs to be very, you know, looked at closely and responded to. another thing is unlike for example, in morocco with a strong women's movement, the reform, there's no really, you know, contemporary women's movement in egypt. there's many organizations, devicive, and sometimes attempts to coordinate, but it's around specific issues and not as a larger kind of --

you know, what's the road map and vision, what's needed to empower women effectively in egypt? finally, with regard to the internet and telecommunications and using social networks sites, basically, you know, one of our key priorities has been to support this innovative use of new technology and digital media, and, you know, this whole question and debate over the social -- the facebook revolution or the twitter revolution, i think simplifies the reality of, you know, the fact this was a very, very long term process in egypt. it wasn't just, you know, a big bang and a facebook)1

>> the later time, hence the revolution efforts, people are careful of years to avoid the revolution. continues to evolve in egypt. i think what i'll try to do is go in reverse order in which the way people gave prosecutions which puts a burden on answering

questions to be the first to give us your one minute take away. >> my one minute take away is i would say that the most critical element in, you know, incredible element of society is the activists there. there are really incredible and creative perseverance, young activists in egypt who accomplish things that have, you know, fascinated the world, and i think that all of our support and attention needs to be paid attention to that, the institutions they created. again, activists are weak institutions. we have to build on what we have and transform this individual talent into institutional talent to be sustained over the the longer term. i think that's it. >> you know, i think, i think that from my perspective if you look at the events in the last few months, i mean, it's really quite shocking that one of the

largest era islam ukic or -- islamic carries the legacy forward of gandhi, that you see a huge peaceful revolution, in large part, enabling a whole new playing field to be created, and it is something that is both, you know, i mean, extraordinary from so many different angles, but also gives us huge hope, but also gives us a lot of paws in terms of how we create, you know, a framework that this society can really build itself for the long term, and i think that is a real tension point where you have so much hope and as aspiration from this, but yet so many challenges that now have to be confronted. as i think folks have said, the ability of everyone to sort of

pinpoint one issue which is freedom, you know, getting rid of an o pressive regime was the easy part. the rebuilding of society is going to take years and years and years. the final take away on all of us is to work closely with local ngo's and the international groups out there to help is finding concrete paths forward. that's the key. if we can really focus on what sorts of initiatives efforts that can show some real impact, quickly build momentum and show people there's a future because you know, the counter vailing tremed of not have any progress made with the feeling of constant challenge is not one we are addressing, and that's probably where aisle leave it. >> okay. i would say actually that i agree with the additions of the

capable people. they are very special. they are very creative, and also sarcastic -- i mean, they are all special in their own way, and they have the solutions, and i think what we need partly is just to support things to happen in this very egyptian way. the strong institutions is, i mean, it is something that we needs now more than ever to have institutions to be able to support those egyptians, build -- and last but not least is the social development. organizations who want to support egypt, listen to egyptians and trust that they will grow. >> thank you, i think i'd like to emphasize the short term.

i think we really need to get egypt back to work producing, hiring, and employing. the fundamentals of the egyptian economy is good, and there are things you cannot take away from egypt like the genius of the location, the suez canal, and i really encourage you and u.s. companies and u.s. government to support the egyptian economy at this very critical time. it's time -- there are opportunities in egypt and even more now. the formula 1 guy says when i see an accident, everybody's taken their foot off the accelerator, i put it down. this is an opportunity for companies, for everybody to

really support egypt and the egyptian economy, and i really, really stress that this is the time because if we don't get through the short term, it's going to be very difficult. thank you. >> yeah, so, i mean, as important as some of the other countries in the region are, whether libya, bahrain, so on, it really comes down to egypt. the whole region is watching how this transition will go. egypt is the most populated country in the region. there's a lot at stake here, and we have to get it right and this is where the u.s. and international community have a role to play. yes, egyptians are capable, and that's certainly the case that's important for there to be indigenous ownership over the process, but at the same time, rarely to democratic transcigses succeed without some western engagement, and that's been the case in eastern europe and latin

america where they played at time, sometimes a surprisingly positive role, so maybe it's possible in the case of the middle east and particularly egypt as well. we've seen the post-revolutionary phase where it's been uneven. we've seen more and more challenges which is why it's important for the u.s. to engage creatively and to mike sure -- make sure egypt is still very high, if not the highest country on the priority list in the middle east. >> well, now this is to begin by thanking all of you for coming to share your afternoon and being a warm audience. we thank the speakers for their remarks and invite you to stay tuned because i'm sure this is not the last conference we we have on this subject. [applause]

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[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> coming up shortly, we are going to go live to the u.n.. the security counsel is leading this afternoon on enforcement of the libyan resolution which includes a no-fly zone and allowing all u.n. members to take the necessary measures necessary. we are expecting results of international leaders as they leave the meeting.

turkey state-run tv has quoted the foreign minister there as saying turkey's demand were met and nato will now take control. nato needs approval much 28 members to do that, and turkey set conditions that were stumbling blocks. we'll have remarks from the u.n. meeting and remarks afterwards as members leave the meeting. it should begin any moment. [no audio] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] glt the 6 -- >> translator: [inaudible] >> translator: the situation in libya. the agenda is -- [inaudible]

we will now begin item two of the agenda. at many meeting dlsh at this meeting the challenge to. while the -- >> mr. president, members of the committee, ladies and gentlemen, i appreciate this opportunity to brief the security counsel on the situation in libya and discuss events following in the wake of passage of resolution 1973. at the paris summit, the

community code for an immediate cease fire and agreed to undertake necessary measures pursuant to resolution 1973 to stop the brutal violence by the libyan regime against their own people. resolution 1973 also re affirms libya's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and its civilian occupation and territory. these issues culminated discussions during my recent travels. authority is needed in tunisia. we're deeply concerned about the nationals still in libya and the heavy burden of caring for refugees at care borders as well as the daunting task of

reintegrating nationallals who have left the country. in all my meetings, public and private, i took special care to stress that action on the resolution 1973 is governed by on globalizing to save the lives of innocent civilians. the international community has acted together to have potential larger scale crisis. i expect the international community to exercise a full delivery in avoiding civilian terrorisms and collateral damage. finally i emphasize how important it is for the international community to speak with one voice with implementing resolution 1973 and dealing with the humanitarian situation. tunisia and egypt because they have bore the brunt of the

refugee crisis deserves high praise. mr. president, let me now affix you on the implementation of security resolutions 1973. military strikes were initiated on 19th of march. few inspections have continued in and around the cities. there is no evidence that the libyan authorities have taken steps to carry out their obligations on the resolutions

1970 or 1973. from the beginning, the united nations has engaged in strong diplomatic efforts. i have kept in close touch with all parties including libyan authorities. i have called the repeatedly for an end to the violence and unrestricted humanitarian access. in this context, let me note, humanitarian aid is exempt for the sanctions region. on 14th of march, my special envoy to libya, we visited contained by the u.n. terrorism coordination. they and their teams undertook broad consultations with the libyan foreign minister and other senior officials. my invoice at fourth, the international communities clearly and unequivocally a tax

on civilians must stop. those responsible for crimes against their people will be accountable. humanitarian access must be guaranteed and resolutions 1970 and 1973 must be implemented in full. the special envoy emphasized it was in libya's best interest to change the dynamics from the crisis. if libya does not act to comply with resolution 1973, the invoice stated, the security counsel may be prepared to take additional measures. the libyan foreign minister responded by claiming the government has been forced to act as it has by perceived threats from al-qaeda and islamist terrorists. he has told a special envoy that libyan authorities sent a

message to rebels to lay down their arms. further, he's stressed that mechanisms should be put in place so that rebel forces are also required to abide by any cease fire. on 24th of march, my special envoy met with the leaders of the libyan armed opposition, including the chairman of the leader transcigsal national counsel -- transitional counsel. they reiterated their call for a cease fire as well as lifting the siege imposed by libyan government forces on some cities in rebel hands. they expressed the deep concern about the hardships inflicted on the libyan people and demanded to the use of tanks and heavy machinery targeting civilians. they further tested that we

could create dispatch on humanitarian mission to all parts of the country. yesterday, i had an informal meeting with the african chairman and discussed at length on how united nations and african union can work together to resolve the libyan situation. tomorrow, my special envoy will travel to the african union. we represent the government and opposition as well as relevant member states and regional organizations. their aim to reach a cease fire and political solution. mr. president, security counsel resolution 1973 demands that the libyan authorities comply with their obligations on international law.

the humanitarian team has had only limited access. we continued to have serious concerns, however, about the protection of civilians, abuses of human rights, and violations of international humanitarian law, and the access of civilian populations to basic commodities and services in areas currently under siege. more than 335, 658 people have left to flee libya since the beginning of the crisis. some 9,000 remain stranded along borders of tunisia and egypt. on 24th of march, we have provided evacuation assistance for more than 60,000 people leaving libya. the regional flesh appeal for the libyan crisis which

requested $160.3 u.s. dollars is 63% funded. the contingency plans to deal with possible migrants and refugees totally as many as 254,000 people. there's reports that food prices in libya are rising sharply with the price of flower, for example, -- flour, for example, doubling in recent weeks. ung and recent authorities continue to be a counterpart in the respected analysis of the scope and scale of the humanitarian situation. moreover, reached on how interagencies, these assessment missions would be carried out. i'd like to remind all parties

currently engaged in hostilities in libya of their obligations on the international humanitarian law to allow and facilitate the safe, rapid, and uninterrupted access by organizations to populations in need. my special mission was too brief to reach definite conclusions about the human rights situation, but they found many warring signs including threats and indictment against the armed opposition. countervisa threats were aired on national television. journalists continue to be arrested and four reporters in try -- tripoli talked about the fear and the height of security forces and innocence of arrests. in light of these findings.

the special envoy informed the nation of libya to create an independent international commission of inquiry to investigate all alleged violations of international human rights law in libya, identified those responsible, make recommendations, and reports of the human rights counsel. the cooperation of the government of libya with the commission of inquiry was met with a positive response even so specific actions were not discussed. mr. president, esteemed members of the counsel, resolution 1973 represses member states to notify, inform my office immediately of the measures they take or intend to take to protect the civilians

enforcement and for facilitation operations and rights. the resolution requires that i report to the counsel within seven days and every month thereafter on the implementation of the resolution including any information on violations of the flight then. today, i'm submitted my first report. so far, the united kingdom, france, united states, denmark, canada, italy, norway, spain, and the united arab emirates sent letters of notification submitting owl counsel members in line with the commitments of resolution 1973. we have also received a notification from nato of its decision to commence an alliance operation in support of an arms

against libya pursuant to resolutions 197 0 and 1973. i look forward to being kept informed as further implementing steps are being taken by your governments including the mechanisms in paragraph 8 of the resolution. i should also designate the focal point for coordination within the secretary. we are similarly looking forward to receiving a concept of operations from member states as mentioned in prar 11 of the resolution. further, it represses i set up a panel of experts to be on a committee in monitoring the implementation of the sanctions. the secretary reviews the rough talk sanctions to find suitable

candidates. some have already been contacted. it is expected those appointed to the panel will possess expertise in the areas of arms, transportations, aviation and mare time, customs, and border control. given the present situation on the ground, it is imperative we continue to act with speed and decision. the resolution raises great responsibilities on the u.n. system. i assure you we will work closely with the member states and regional variations to coordinate a common effective timely response. thank you, mr. president. >> translator: i thank you the secretary general ban ki-moon. i now invite others to continue the discussion on the subject.

the meeting is adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> head of the security counsel meeting coming to a close, we understand the united nation secretary ban ki-moon will come to the microphone here and we expected to get his comments

4:40 eastern. we'll have that live for you here on c-span2. a real quick reminder that tonight at 8 eastern, the prime time lineup begins with remarks from michelle bachelet talking about her new job head of empowering women around the world. that's at eight here here on c-span2. after that, the news media covering court cases and how that's changing the popularity of new media sources. that starts at 9:40 eastern. >> this weekend on book tv, there's a discussion of the

failed assassination of ronald reagan. throughout the weekend from the virginia festival of the book, panels on medicine and science, the vietnam war, the founding fathers and religion and more. visit booktv.org. >> again, waiting for comments from foreign leaders as they leave the u.n. security counsel meeting on libya this afternoon. we'll have remarks from general ban ki-moon.

in the meantime, a discussion on the military campaign in libya and potential impact on u.s. foreign policy in libya and the region. >> the white house is the national archives located on institution in pennsylvania avenue and the theater is part of the national archives complex. have a group of students from four states. they are all a.p. honor students. we are pleased marc ginsberg d to welcome marc ginsberg. what is the situation in libya and what is the end game? guest: it depends on who you ask. if you ask president cr, it

is a hanitaria >> from harming innocent libyan civilians. if you ask the pentagon, it is to enforce a no-fly zone. if you ask susan rice and others, it is probably is to join a coalition of countries that are willing to take this battle all the way to force mr. gadhafi to give up power and perhaps leave libya. so you have a unfortunate inconsistency among our allies and within the administration as to exactly what our goals and objectives are. >> is that part of the problem? we talked earlier about what john boehner, the speaker of the house, sent to the president. what is our mission? how long will we be there? even if it's limited focus, it still has the potential to cost american blood and treasure. >> i think it's clear from the congressional perspective, and

whether or not authorized the united states to participate in the implementation of the no-fly zone. the president has declared as secretary of defense that the united states is going to take a back-seat role in the coming days. but there's been enormous confusion among our other allies, the allies, the arab league, britain and france over who is actually going to be responsible for the command and control of the operation, the military operation going forward. the french don't want nato, the british want nato, the germans have absolutely no interest in this. other nato allies are not contributing to the cause and the united states is largely the 800 pound elephant in the room when it comes to the type of military capacity that we can bring to bear in libya at least in the air. >> so why go forth with a mission that doesn't have a clear understanding among the coalition of who's responsible for what? >> well, i think because in some respects, the president had hoped, and i think with some

good reason, that while he acted belated, stopping the slaughter of what inevitably would have occurred in benghazi had they not voted to impose a no-fly zone on the country would have resulted in human catastrophe. benghazi has one million people, and gadhafi's forces could have resulted in thousands of people being killed. we can leave. we did stop the slaughter. if the french want to take the fight to the shores of tripoli and rid libya in benghazi, i say let them do it. if president czar -- czar cozy wants to do, let him do it.

>> what questions is he asking today about the operation? >> i think the first and foremost, who's going to take the forces that are going to enforce the no-fly zone, number one. number two, are the french pushing us and expanding our control in libya even though it's inconsistent with arab league wishes, and perhaps the wishes of other countries that are participating in this. number three, how do we prevent americans from being harmed as a result of the confusion over who is actually going to be responsible. give the president time to sort it out. he has to take responsibility

for the hard questions. is our role to help coordinate from 30,000 feet a no-fly zone, or is the mission of the engagement in the military engagement in libya mission going to take the fight and having to place ground forces in libya in order to prevail? >> we have 100 close up students. all high school. where did you go to school? >> i went to high school in israel as well as connecticut. >> we'll get to your questions. your name and where you are from. >> i'm connor from thomas jefferson high school in alexandria. throughout history we've seen patterns of revolutionaries inspired by other revolutionaries. it's clear we are starting to see this again. my question is what do you envision the ultimate scope of these revolutions being.

are they going to start fizzling out or growing to an even larger extent? >> it's an excellent question. i dare say that even all of the people who i read and who write about the middle east cannot really accurately predict. obviously, the constitutional referendum that occurred in egypt was a major step forward in giving egyptians a sense of democracy. yet next door in libya, this is essentially civil war. civil war that is largely tribal in nature, confusing to anyone in libya, confusing to anyone outside of libya, and in tunisia, where it all started, the process is proceeded quietly at pace. yet in bahrain, it's filled with violence as it is in yemen. there's a wave in the young people in the arab world to have a better life and essentially overthrow the order that is

preventing them from obtaining that. the proud thing for all of us is that these young people wish to have the same things that you have. an opportunity to be educated, opportunity to get a job, hope that the government would be responsive to them. that's in some respects why this is so unique and why no one was able to predict it. yet at the same time, it's going to play itself out in many different ways. >> in 1970s, ginsburg duringed as the advisor, he also served as the u.s. ambassador to morocco. sean is joining us from san diego, good morning to you. >> good morning. i'm sean, i want to first say congrats to all of the students there. they are our future of america. and bless each and every one of them. take a stronghold and make the right decision.

i just want to say president obama is doing a little bit too late. i think there's a lot of people out there that would agree with me that he should have jumped on this little bandwagon that the french have started, just too late. we had it rebel student uprising and it was strong. we should have been there then and there. what held us back then? and how many other countries are we going to start policing -- it seems like the united states is taking the police state role in the world. how many other countries are we going to step in and start this we're going to take care of the people who we want their

idealism working and not their previous regime? >> john, thanks for the call? why the delay ambassador ginsberg? >> i think when you look back, there's a lot of people who are responsible. why didn't we act sooner? now the rebel rag tag army doesn't have the capacity to fight it's way across the desert from benghazi through 450 miles of territory controlled by gadhafi's forces, despite the attacks that are taking place against him. we don't know what it would take. we know that from the perspective of the forces fighting, the opposition forces, that they are going to -- they will not prevail without additional military support that goes i don't think the no-fly zone. that's what the military says. why did the obama administration ultimately wait? i think because while the president politically declared

it was time for gadhafi to go, his administration didn't accomplish that. his administration needs to keep his eye on one the core strategic interests in the united states. our involvement in libya should have related strikely humanitarian. we do not have, again, a strategic interest in involving ourselves and every revolution that is occurring in the middle east. our core interest are outside of libya, not inside of libya. >> during your time in the region, did you have any interactions with moammar gadhafi? >> not myself directly with him, but from morocco was responsible in the diplomatic activities in countries where we didn't have diplomatic representation. i was asked by the libya government when i was no longer in the united states government to travel to tripoli and to spend time with the foreign minister as well as with the minister of intelligence before he gave up his nuclear weapons to explain how the united states

foreign policy would act in the wake of that type of decision on the libyan government. there's been a careful collaboration. like anything else, it's a society. gadhafi has turned this into a dictatorship where no one was able to make decisions without his approval? >> my name is will bunting, and so i wanted to talk about looking historically at american responses to foreign and civil wars. the -- our response to the civil war that occurred in spain was that we basically -- the american government were a neutral. but we were -- had groups of americans go over on their own dime voluntarily to help out in the conflict there. i was wondering, because, you know, as we say, we don't have any direct threat to national security of libya, but perhaps we in the europeans do have some interest in the oil reserves in

libya. my question is do you think that maybe we could have some sort of voluntary force go and help out in libya, as opposed to having tax dollars spent there as maybe, you know, the oil companies could help out there? >> you know, that's an excellent question. throughout history, americans have voluntarily picked up and moved to go and fight on behalf of people's around the world who are seeking to be free. some of them fought on behalf of the communist against the czar's government when you had the russia revolution. the same is true in the french revolution. i don't think there's too many americans that would want to pack up and shall we say invade the shores of tripoli to involve themselves in libya. part of it is there's an infinity factor at work. the idealism that should generate american support for

revolutions has somewhere been undermined by what essentially has become a military struggle between two sides in libya. unlike the tahrir square uprising in egypt where generated enormous interest around the world and young people using nonviolent means attracted the intense interest of the media and american people. we commend those young people for engaging in nonviolence. here that has transformed itself from an uprising that occurred in tripoli and benghazi into a full-fledged civil war, where in some respects the ideals of the revolution has been lost in what has become a military more or less stalemate. >> c-span's primary mission is to educate americans about government and policy and politics. which is why we are pleased to have a group of honor students from four states here in washington, d.c., part of the

national archive complex. our guest is ambassador marking gingsberg, as we discuss the situation in libya, as we've seen the arab screen. up front. >> hi. i was wondering what your opinion is how our interaction with the middle east problems could be in the long run for us. could we potential rebe in placing powers that will be worse for us in a sheep and wolf clothing, especially with respect to terrorism? >> this is an unsettling dangerous time for the middle the -- middle east. we have core strategic interests. what are those? the corner stone is defending and enforcing the egypt egyptian-israeli peace treaty, and helping to build the peace between israel and arab neighbors. all of this is being made even more difficult as a result of

the revolutions in the region. we are watching lebanon slowly being annexed by hezbollah which is arming itself to the teeth as iran's proxy against israel. despite all of the violence in tehran's streets against the government, it's proceeding to develop a nuclear weapon. and the price of oil is effecting everyone in this room and their parents because the instability in the middle east creates instability in the oil market and countries are weary about what is going to happen, then it's going to drive up the price of oil. at every step of the way, while we are certainly interesting in the revolutions, we need to keep sight of what america's core strategic interests are in the middle east. i'm afraid the obama administration caught up in the complexities of the revolutions has taken it's eyes off of what our core interests are. it's a 24/7 job.

i'm afraid they are only spending 12 hours on it. >> i'm going to ask a show of hands in libya and involvement in iraq and afghanistan. how many of you think we have a responsibility to be in those three countries? by show of hands, yes? how many say no? thanks for your response. let's go to joe from fort washington, maryland. >> good morning. mary jo. >> good morning. >> i would like to ask the question of why is it that anything that president obama does is scrutinized in a bad way? i also want to say that president obama chose to human life other protocol. it seems to be everyone else in congress is worrying about what the constitution says and for dennis kucinich to say he likes president obama, but he loves the constitution. i applaud the president for taking life over paperwork and words. thank you. >> mary jo, thanks for the call.

we had a discussion about the constitution earlier. your response, marc? >> i love the constitution also. this is a difficult time for the president in the middle east. while i want to see him get it right without having to further undermine the standing of the united states because of the argumentation inside congress over what we should or shouldn't do in the middle east. my remainder to the white house is that it needs to focus on the humanitarian mission and indeed encourage the french and others to step up to the plate. if our goal -- you know, the worst thing that we can see happen is that we want to see gadhafi needs to go. at the same time, if it stays in power, it's an enormously challenging message to other revolutions and other democrats and it makes the united states look even weaker. >> let me go back to the letter from speaker john boehner. a u.n. security council resolution does not substitute for the u.s. political and

military strategy. he went on to say that it is my open that you will provide the american people and congress with a clear and robust assessment of the scope, objective, and purpose of our mission. >> well, i think the speaker was initially supported the president, deferred to the president. if i were in congress and back advisory senator kennedy, i think i would be asking the same questions. the administration has not fulfilled a core obligation to the american people to find the mission in libya when it itself is confused over what that mission really is. it is speaking out of so many different voices right now, and it is inconsistent with our allies goals that there's a rightful concern on the part of congress over exactly what this mission is. the president owes it to the american people to say we are not going to engage in boots on

the ground, supporting regime change that's inconsistent with the security council resolution. our job is to merely support the no-fly zone and to not continue attacks or support attacks that seem to be supporting the rebels and their efforts to drive all the way to tripoli, unless the united states decides otherwise. then he has to go to congress and seek an amendment to the security resolution. that's why he owes it and the administration owes it to his congress to explain what the mission is. i hope when he explains it to the congress, it will resolve it for itself. >> question other here. good morning. >> i'm christian, i'm thomas jefferson high school in virginia. when i think about the events, i draw parallels to past events in history. i believe this is more parallel to the nato airstrikes in yugoslavia than in iraq and the wars in iraq or afghanistan.

how would you say that this campaign is a stop -- trying to put a stop in the humanitarian crisis? how far do you think it should go to prevent the crimes that gadhafi is committing against humanity? >> let me preface the question. remember, we were establishing and had diplomatic relations. yet american diplomats without the bush administration and the obama administration were going to gadhafi, going to libya, and dealing with him as if all of the issues in which he was repressing the government was largely irrelevant. let's keep that in perspective. there's an uprising against him. the uprising is largely undertaken by young people and lawyers and other educated people inside tripoli. it then spreads across the

desert. our responsibility at this point in time is -- should be very limited. to provide humanitarian support for the people in benghazi and to provide -- to help fulfill the security council in the strict four corners of the resolution, not the way the french are interpreting this. that is to support the no-fly zone that keeps gadhafi's air force from being able to attack civilians. we have accomplished that goal. i commend the president. he can say he's accomplished that in the american people. and if the french and others want to support the opposition in it's battle on the group, as i've said, let them do it. let them take the lead. they have a much greater strategic interest in what takes place in libya than the united states. >> stacie is joining us from new york city. good morning. >> good morning. i'd like to thank you for

c-span. you know not just educating the students in front of you, but lots of us. my question is this. i respect marc gingsberg's opinions greatly. i've learned a lot from c-span and marc as well. correct me if i'm wrong, i think i'm hearing you say our strategic interest should take president, for example in hindsight we had no strategic interest in rwanda and in hindsight we second guessed whether we should have done something. i'm wondering if the strategic interest over humanitarian and human rights violation should guide our foreign policy? >> you know, as a ted kennedy democrat, i have enormous respect for providing -- america should be a great voice for

concern. when we see terrible things, we should be of assistance. yes, rwanda and this administration, and susan rice and the clinton administration feels i'm sure a certain sense of responsibility because of not acting in rwanda. the same thing holds true in kosovo, northwest -- as well as bosnia. i think that the administration could have acted more quickly to help impose a no-fly zone in order to protect the people who have been killed in many of the cities in libya. we have acted almost too late to prevent that from happening. yet we have now acted. better act late than not at all. we prevented the massacre in benghazi, a city of a million people. we cannot stop a civil war if people want to wage and have the military means to accomplish that. if people inside libya who are

the opposition decide to fight this fight and they are brave and courageous for doing so against very difficult odds, this becomes a military struggle, rather than an effort to support a humanitarian cause in libya. and that's the big difference between providing humanitarian support for people who are innocent civilians, versus getting involved in a military battle that's being waged by semiregular troops who want to fight gadhafi's forces. >> right here in the center. next question. please go ahead. >> hi, my name is linda. i go to north school in minneapolis, minnesota. why are we taking on libya when there are other countries that need our help as much as libya? and if libya was at a energy level, what would we do when other countries are at an emergency country? >> that question is being debated around every office and in the administration.

why are we involving ourself in libya when in bahrain, the royal family is shooting demonstrators in the streets who are protesting the royal family rule? why have we been largely silent when the yemeni president has sent his sharp shooters to kill innocent civilians protesting his rule? in syria, the syrian government, it's something out of the newspaper, is now using brute force in demonstrators in southern syria. and the list goes on and on. i think it really comes down to what extent do we have -- does the united states have greater strategic interest in the leadership of in those countries than we do in libya? well, it's clear at least in so far as the obama administration, gadhafi is expendable. we don't know who would take

over. the united states made a decision that the king of bahrain is not expendable. and the president of yemen while he is someone who has clearly been a repressive dictator, has been an instrumental voice and force to be reckoned with in our al qaeda. we are picking and choosing our fights on america's longer term interest. is that inconsistent with what we see across the board? you bet you. >> joining us from illinois. good morning. >> hi. i'd like to know like just what percentage do you think that -- looking at your perspective, how many left does gadhafi's forces have? should we expect uprising in other countries just except libya? >> well, that's a question that

i think only our military officials now for sure. after our hundreds and hundreds of sources, we have degraded his forces. he still has tanks and civilian centers. the opposition is still fighting him with meager weapons. in misurata and other cities, there's a 450 mile road that separates tripoli from benghazi. along that road, there's fighting that's taking place. as long as gadhafi has the money to keep importing mercenaries than he maybe able to keep fighting. finally, the question is where this is going to be other revolutions. watch syria, obviously watch what's taking place in yemen. and no one has talked about syria, and that country is in

turmoil. >> you get the last question. go ahead. >> i'm trillion california. do you think american intervention in libya is necessary? or should we allow the rebels to continue in revolution in removing gadhafi and they will gain a sense of accomplishment that they overthrough gadhafi without need of foreign aid. they themselves did it. >> the fact of the matter is that as certainly constituted, the libyan opposition does not, i mean repeat does not, have the means to accomplish that. they are desperate for outside support, from weapons to ammunition to coordinated ground assault, assistance in the u.s. and other forces. i'm against it. i think again if the french and other allies feel they have a strategic interest in taking this battle on behalf of the opposition all the way to tripoli, then let them lend --

let them land the foreign region in tripoli and let them take on the fight. this is what president sarkozy and the government want. they have a greater stake than we do. i don't think the united states has a core strategic interest than getting involved any more than the military has done so despite the clambering by the opposition. this is something that indeed is really of no great consequence to the united states and if our allies want to take on the responsibility for this fight, we should back them up and let them do so. >> let's conclude with the short term question. what do you think is going to happen in libya? and if or when gadhafi leaves, who's his successor? >> i'm afraid there's going to be -- unless he continues to get hammered by other air forces, other than ourself. we will continue to hold on. there's hope on the part of the secretary defense gates that there would be divisions with

his own family. he has eight children. all of whom have responsibility of military aspects of the campaign. there's some hope that other people in the government would deflect. that's perhaps maybe wishful thinking. he's defiant individual by every stretch of the imagination. i'm afraid the worse thing that i could see happening is a bitter stalemate that exists while we enforce a no-fly zone in each party regroups. and that will inflict only further humanitarian concerns. who will take other? that's anyone's guess. this group of -- this opposition is not led by any one individual other than the former justice minister who heads the provisional council. and yet in libya, it's a tribal society. there's 140 tribes in libya. six more of us dominant. they will have nothing to do with the provisional council. whoever will lead libya will either be a member of gadhafi's

own tribe or one of the other tribes or eastern country. because the one thing that gadhafi tried to do is break down the power of the tribal leaders by creating this very crazy quilt society in order to stop the power of the tribes. but the tribes will resurrect themselves, and i dare say someone will emerge as a leader of one the tribes. >> coming up tonight at 8 eastern, the prime time line up.

>> the u.n. security council held a meeting on libya. we are expecting remarks from secretary ban ki-moon. that's expected about 4:40 eastern. a couple of other stories. the associated press is reporting that secretary of state clinton will travel to london for a conference to coordinate the strategy against moammar gadhafi's regime in libya, and the u.n. secretary general said representatives from the opposition will attend an african union meeting in ethiopia tomorrow. it's part of the effort to get a cease fire. there's no evidence they have

implemented a cease fire as they claim. they also expressed confidence in afghan led reconciliation efforts. we spoke at the middle east institute here in washington on the same day the u.s. voted to extent it's afghan mission by one year. the u.n. special representative for afghanistan. it's a real honor to have him here today and have him here in washington. he's not often here in dc. in fact, he has come down from new york city where he was talking about afghanistan on the eve of the u.n.'s decision to renew the mandate in afghanistan. i believe the security council is voting today. is that correct? it is done. and it has passed. so on thursday, mr. de mistura was talking about the u.n.'s

role in afghanistan and the commitment and development of the security and the country. the u.n. plays an important role there. there are 34 -- the u.n. is represented in 34 afghan providences. and spent last year over $1 billion on the country. millions of avenue -- afghans benefit from the food programs and development. afghans are asking today to take a greater lead in all development and efforts to achieve piece. mr. de mistura made it clear that the u.n. takes the calls for thesoeverty very seriously. it hears them and takes them seriously. how should the transition take place? handing over responsibility to afghan government and government agency and how can the u.n. support the process, as well as maintain it's compliment to afghanistan's development? these are some of the questions will be at the heart of what mr.

de mistura will be discussing. i'm going to keep his bio brief because it's in the flier. he is one the u.n.'s most accomplished and experienced initials having served in the organization for over 30 years -- >> 40 years. >> 40 years. even more reason to take everything he says very seriously. under challenging positions he's promoted political dialogue, led reconstruction and humanitarian, and been involved in overseeing elections throughout the world. his work has taken him from balkans and afghanistan and many places in between. before kabul, he served at the deputy of the world food program in rome, and prior to that she was the special representative. under the leadership of his team 1,000 people helped oversee

successful elections in iraq. those are a few of the many accomplishments. it's a great honor to have you here, mr. de mistura. >> thank you. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you. >> good to see many friends and colleagues here. let me perhaps keep it short so that you will have an opportunity of raising questions. and then the focus, instead, on the three area, and then on three events. there's some logic and so much we could be talking about on and in afghanistan. for the three areas, first of all, security. because that's the first priority for everyone in afghanistan, every afghan and every foreign afghani, the second priority, as you probably know is security as well.

then the second issue is that what do we mean, and what can we do, and what does it mean transition? and the other keyword is reintegration and the next word is reconciliation. so you are having the words which mean a lot and should be meeting even more hopefully during this year. and then in terms of events, we have the announcement by the president which took place today -- yesterday. and then we have the istanbul conference. prior to that, there will be an announcement by president obama and as he has indicated sometime in july, and then there will be a conference in bonn. these are the stepping stones which will be foreseen. of course, as we are in a very fluid environment and what we are not the only ones having

steps stones or creating stepping stones, others may have. we hope not. but that is the plan. okay. so let's go back on security. because it's the issue. the situation in terms of security, because there's always a lot of debate is it more secure or less secure than before. are we getting the worse situation and so on. the fact is the search by general petraeus in nonmilitary is working. we can see that happening in the sense that there is clearly a change in the perception in afghanistan of the momentum. now you could say and rightly so, yet, but how come if it is working there are so many casualties and there is so much violence? this is unfortunately a reality which we also saw in iraq. there was a moment when the peak of the so-called pressure did attract a counterpeak by the

insurgents. and secondly, the war was also much more occasions because there were many more troops on the ground. the issue is to so after six months this is producing what it should be producing. here comes the main point. in iraq, although every country is different, in iraq after the period of peak of bad news but linked to actually a surge, you suddenly started seeing the first beginning of the outcome of the surge. in afghanistan, we will have to see what's happening in july. because obviously the outcome of the military and intensified operation cannot be how many people on the other side that you are killing more than last year or more than last month, but whether that has produced

what i think in a remarkably well-worded every word in my mother's opinion was highly calculated. speech by the city and the clinton at the asia society. could have been the society next time was as it was indicating in other words ways from military surge, there is a need for diplomatic political surge. and that needs to be seen taken place during this year. otherwise that military aspect alone cannot be indicator of any success because -- or sustainable success because we all have agreed everyone and in my opinion, even the taliban has agreed with themselves there is no military victory in afghanistan. so let's move to the next point. we can elaborate, of course, on many others, but on the regarding security. transition, what is transition.

transition is yes, a keyword which sends a message. but it's also a reality. in coinciding with the win/win situation paradoxically, we will see whether it does. but we have to be optimist. what is the win/win? well, let's give you some elements that we live every day with then. president karzai is clearly and the afghans are clearly emphatic about national security. we have been charge of the country for 4,000 years, the russians went through alexander the great, the brits, foreigners now helps us, but at the end of the day, we are profoundly nationalistic. very true. in that case, it's time for them to start feeling this is actually moving in the direction of them owning more of their

future. one win. of course, that comes with accountability. it comes also with responsibility, and it's a challenge. on the other side in lisbon there was a decision in 2014. not 2011 the end date. fine. and the end date for a certain type of engagement which also gives the feeling to everyone, let's go for the extra mile if needed. let's go beyond just 2011, and not use or have 2011 to be used as an opportunity for just caving in and waiting for everyone to be tired and then move on. but at the same time, it becomes also a message to parliaments, perhaps even to the u.s. congress to say look it's worth trying harder, try the extra mile, but this is a light there, and there is a plan there. from that point of view,

transition is also the message from those constituting money and soldier. we are starting gradually, passing on that. it's not going to happen over night. if you are thinking about waiting everybody out, the waiting out may not take place quickly. you will have to endure at least 2014. are you really going to be in the cave waiting for every night rage? is that a great opportunity scenario, or perhaps it maybe better to start looking at some different scenario. and to neighbors, that this is gradually taking place, it's moving in the direction, no one intends to be there forever, but at the same time, we're not going to do what happens twice for the afghans, and they are traumatized by that. being abandoned for a third time after having an intense attention and then suddenly good-bye and good luck, and then

it'll take place. in order to transition, that makes a lot of sense for everyone to read through that word what you need to read. then, let's go back to what is the military surge hopefully bringing? what secretary of state hillary clinton say, hopefully a political surge. that means reconciliation. that means some talking and talking not only about talks, but about a future afghanistan. but with some end game that needs to be sufficiently reassuring to all afghans and to all neighbors apart from our own principals. why did we all enter afghanistan? that type of processing is already taking place. there is a high level peace count. nominated by the afghans, and

it's led by a person who is in theory extremely, potentially tied to the taliban, because he was exactly the opposite of the taliban. and some people have been arguing, but this is the wrong decision. you don't want to have someone ad to them in their own personal history. may motive argument is that's exactly the person that you need. because remember begging for that, you remember so many other cases, you need to have someone who has got sufficient credentials to be able to make some confessions in the discussion and not be accuse of the being a betrayal of any community. bottom line, i think the high-level peace council and president's leadership is quite a good bet on our side in terms of moving forward on reconciliation.

a perfect -- no one is perfect, nothing is perfect in afghanistan. but a good bet. bearing in mind that they want to be in charge of their own discussions, and we should not be appearing to pay lip service. and true of the concept of afghan-owned, afghan led and so on. so the next point is reintegration. you remember that keyword. reintegration, you have two schools of thoughts. bottom up or bottom down? in other words, people who will come and leave and abandon the taliban environment in order to be able to be offered a job, security reassurances, and hopefully by doing so you peel off the insurgency. second theory, they won't peel off. unless there's some reconciliation and some agreement, they actually would be afraid, worried, or not trustworthy in terms of moving. the two theories are still in

question. in practice 700 of the people who are -- were part of the insurgency, not all of them talibans and part of the insurgency have already moved into that. we need to reach 30,000, at least, if not more. but if and when we get into moving on reconciliation, having this package ready and not waiting for six months before that by that time, they would have returned to the country side, there you are, i just reconciled and here i am. i'm getting nothing. would have been also unwise. bottom line, reconciliation, reintegration are supposed to be supporting each other which form and in which way would we see during the process at the moment? so the next point are the two other elements that we would think about timing. and in life, timing is crucial. and the secret is to try to have some stepping stones so that you

have a feeling that you have to deliver, and where you can do something. especially in a clear like 2011. 2014 is crucial and 2011 is a sanction. because we all know that this is where the music and the tone of the music will be laid down. when are these opportunities? well, it will be in july when there will be the first beginning of some type of redeployment. and that would be sending a message in the direction. and then you will have an opportunity in istanbul at the conference on a regional aspect. remember any deal, any reconciliation, in taking place in afghanistan without having a comfort zone by important,

potentially constructed engaged, sometimes not totally constructed engaged neighbors is crucial for the whatever agreement take place. regional conversation in istanbul, followed by the conference in december, which could be the opportunity of taking stock of what has been done during this year, both politically and elsewhere. who knows, perhaps even more than that. i will stop there. and i will rather expose myself to a brutal questions. so that i can be even more explicit while being in mind that i have to be a u.n. official in front of the media, and therefore, you will have to understand some questions i may not be able to answer. but i will try to be very frank. >> thank you very much for that analysis and that introduction in terms of what we should be looking ahead at in afghanistan. there are a lot of afghan

experts in this room. so i'm going to open up the floor, ask people to state their name and affiliation, and please keep your questions to one question only. for those of you in the overflow room, and there are quite of few, we have question cards that you will fill out and hand your questions to an intern too. so let's start with barbara in the back here. [inaudible comment] >> can you talk about whether you are going to have more meetings like that? do you think it is constructive? should the u.n. set up another process like the six plus two to bring the neighbors? and finally if i could comment a the bit on what iran has been up to? thank you. >> thanks. could i have a glass of water? oh. it's there. great.

good. we had to find a nice name for that. because otherwise, you know, it's very difficult to decide what you consider a neighbor. a neighbor can be geographic, historic, can be a remote neighbor, can be an influential neighbor, could be an exinfluential neighbor. the bottom line we called it silk road. and it is the type of meeting taking place among the ambassadors on the silk road, including obviously countries which normally would not be considered exactly neighboring, but have a lot of stakes, or a lot of interest. so it goes from india, all the way to turkey. passing through russia, obviously the immediate neighbors which i don't need to remind you about, including

istanbul. they all have a stake. and they all are interested and i think it's a general interest in stability in afghanistan. but many of them have also communities which are very close to them or can be influenced by them, or are influencing them. this year community would be iran or fox just to mention uzbeks and others. we need to make sure the type of dialogue is maintained so that it doesn't become only a bilateral discussion. that's what we've been.cc. how to make sure the arguments are not just political. if you talk to them in a meeting withing they would all say we all agree about stability. you need to find tune what is your concern about the future of

afghanistan? and they may tell you, for instance, drugs. a lot of drugs going to iran. a lot of drugs going to russia. or they may tell you we maybe concerned about long-term american permanent bases. because it does give us a feeling of threat. well, that helps all of us to fine tune the messaging that we give to everyone that perhaps, the way you present the future strategic agreement that is going to be taking place between the united states and the afghanistan, does take into account the sensitivities of neighboring countries in terms of it. for instance, no base will ever be permanent. for instance, a base will never be used against any neighbor. for instance, they will only be active on call basis from the government. and renewable by the government. and so on and so on.

this type of discussion helps everyone hopefully to start feeling more comfortable about what could be the future scenario of the stable afghanistan and making them feeling comfortable with it. the other areas are economic. think about the railways, roads, water, electricity, the grids, and the minerals. access to ports. it was very good agreement which was response iive and very effectively richard holbrooke in afghanistan and pakistan. it took years, but made a big difference of interaction. which is not just words. iran -- iran is a big country. i'm stating the obvious with the long border with afghanistan and also a strategic concerns about what happens in afghanistan. and they have a share community

with whom they are feeling in touch. they have a big problem about drugs. and they don't like the taliban. because the talibans themselves did affect them a very badly when they were in charge in afghanistan and even killed, i think about nine to ten of the diplomats. so ignoring iran could be a big mistake. engaging it is the only way. but if not, iran and pakistan is if not even more important in terms of constructive engagement. so it's a lot of work on that. but i don't see this as a back -- show stopper at all. because they are all worried, all of them about the afghanistan that returns to kill, and none of them -- none of them wants afghanistan to go back into the hands of the taliban. the pakistanis are suffering

enormously. in fact, they have been suffering more than afghanistan from their own taliban. so long answer to a very good and short question. i'm sorry. >> thank you. >> thank you. i'm a journalist with the afp news agency. i wanted to follow up what you said about the beginning about the surge strategy how you assess that as working. you look at the violence in the south, and the situation in kandahar, the delay and any sort of military operation, that area. and it's hard to see. at least from the outside, it's hard to see result there is. what did you see the search is working. you talk about more about the diplomatic track than the military track? >> and if i know that one could look at it from so many points of view, so you want to just accept the fact that i'm looking at it from one angle. the angle i'm trying to sit is the following.

when you have a substantial search taking place in the south, you detect and you understand also that often the taliban have attempted to destabilize other areas in order to send the signal that this is not enough in order to take the so-called momentum reverse. but when you look at carefully, you start seeing they are doing spectacular attacks, or attempting in places you don't expect it. we have been monitoring it very carefully in kabul and sharif, and not so much in -- we started doing attacks in the middle of the square on friday in the market of the fruit and birds, and killing 80 people. we have seen since the surge has

started to become increditment tally active, we are seeing more and more of this taking place. jalalabad, 32 killed in a bank in a person shooting in front of the video camera in the bank. and that is the national game of the afghans. they respect it by them as much as they do as football or baseball. it's close to a school or place, and most of them, actually all of them civilians are killed. these are mistakes, produced by the feeling that there is a need to produce a counternarrative to the reversal of the momentum. that's why if you look at it from an incident point of view, it looks back. look at it from an operation, it tries to change the holding. second is that you can see from the afghans that there are

feeling that the hold by the taliban on territory areas is not there anymore. of course, they may return. that's why spring is going to be crucial. they may not find the cave where they actually were putting their own weapons and hiding during a period. so the end of this in terms of judgment would be won when the surge would have exhausted its own peak, june. second when the spring would have shown whether the taliban have been able to do a counteroffensive or not, and therefore the security would have changing in terms, particularly about perception. >> thank you, we've got a question from doyle mcmahon of the "l.a. times" he's acting about direct talks about u.s. and taliban? how importanting and how should they be structured? >> where are you?

>> he's in the over flows room. sorry, just to have a visual. hi. thank you. i think that the speech by the secretary of state hillary clinton was if you read it very carefully, at least the way i read it, was indicating that you at a certain point don't talk to friends, but you need in order to produce peace, you need to talk to someone else as well. therefore, one day -- one day, it will be essential that a take -- that a talk takes place. given up at least the concept of wanting to adopt which a scenario that is unacceptable, but perhaps not by putting that up front, but at the end of the discussion. and the first ones who need to talk to each other are the afghans. and they should be in the lead. also because if we don't allow

them, they will do is anyway, and they should do it. but the american side which has got so much stake and thanks to american and due to america, everyone else is there for the countries need to be involved. so there are important. and they are -- i think part of what should be one day sooner the better the beginning of the so-called political surge. >> michael from the neery south asia center. you noted that the president and moving along the transition strategy and the process of reintegration, reconciliation, it obviously has relatively limited capacity at the moment, and i was wondering about your thinking about what unima and

what your colleagues and others could do to support the work of the high peace council and what specific support you think they might need or might be interested from you and perhaps an official group? :

insisted that anyone who can do so. and you have established in terms of peace. we have established upon the establishment of the council and if god the three compliments. the first one is logistics. logistics is 80% of negotiation. and i know many of you know said. you have to be able to be at the right place at the right time and be also in a way that you appear to be not contaminated. find another way by marine helicopter or fine by other ways may in a way give you a certain type of profile for identity.

we have been putting our own helicopters. we have eight and three plants we have, at the disposal. and therefore they have used the logistical, which means classification. why? they needed to call up of the country start talking if we proposed is that we propose that, what if you are concerned about that. and secondly, around the region to enter turkey, then to pakistan and they've just announced support to go to iran. second pillar is extensive support. a group of experts, about eight teen of them are very, very qualified. many young people who have a

remarkable capacity of having studied the taliban and the other side and work and prepare papers, position papers, options were probably according to the afghan approach may require various languages and have a roster of many other available for this extensive production. example, how do you fit if you start discussing the concept of an islamic identity of the afghanistan, which is a crucial team. edit the same time, maintaining all the fires at the meantime of human rights and women's day. we have now 59 women in the parliamentary. so that is another area where whereabouts. in three measures they would

need to be a u.n. office in order to facilitate meetings between people who don't like to meet. that office can be easily opened by the u.n. without actually providing any type of decisive legitimacy to anyone. the official western conference is the note reading that will work, so we are very picky. we can also do a very useful office. and that would be another option that we are keeping in mind. another is, how to report confidence that the mission. bottom line, we are quick to support the format and official negotiator team. >> these are two questions and ngos and the other room who follow but that shouldn't talking about with world vision. what does the political search look like?

is a case for personnel pulling back to initial nonstate plus ngo actors to operate more independently? and a question about what happens to women and girls in afghanistan? is this a priority for the future? >> let's start with the last one, which is you probably know the u.n. had to be very firm about the election. in the middle of a lawyer and after a difficult election, it would've been bad enough to have them. what could have been, you are trying to capitalize on the fact that you have institutions this building up such an electoral commission. they did their job. they got one in and one out in three mps excluded and it was

a difficult process. if the institution moves, we need to have them because that's the beginning of fighting impunity. on the same concept, we need to maintain on what has been achieved ricardian women and human rights in particular. and you could argue from a position as the concern of many afghan women this means we are going to compromise, give up for making peace. well, i hope and believe that won't be the case. at the taliban and decided to discuss and i would say that since they have discovered the

reason there's a solution is they may have attempted to do so. the only way through which they can be feeling that they will have an access to discussion is knowing that the afghan constitution is dead. of course you can change it if you want, you can change at a lecture of a lake you change it and you have to try by winning the election. you could aspire in france for 50 years during the cold war they were trying to take over and change. did they achieve it? now. so there are ways through which you can still accommodate their fact that they are teaming to do that, but they will not able to do it, especially if we have a parliament enthroned women and it only a part of supporting a. in conclusion, we should keep an

eye on it because the argument on women is a fundamental part of not only for us, for millions of afghans right now. but i am detecting the area for the taliban have been taken over some temporary iran have been very sensitive and careful this time do not overplay, although we heard two or three incidents, probably -- and here is the optimist that they must have learned the lesson that the afghan are not really anymore for that. but we have to cross the bridge. regarding instead the role of the ngos and humanitarian base. you're right. i think at the moment the reason of the humanitarian was drama in afghanistan, but there is a potential drama for the conflict to go in the right direction and poverty and possibility of some areas for civilian casualties

and suffering. and therefore an independence of the ngos to be allowed to do that would be and is important. >> jim purcell, former director general of oam. i've been following -- >> that's french. the >> since 1979 i've seen very organizations, both full displacement of afghan citizens and that you're dealing with this place. i'm wondering if you can comment on the return immigration that these people have to chance to stay. >> by the way, i know you -- your heart is still there. he should be proud of oam. we are seeing similar things that we been in kuwait when

thousands and thousands of people purchase workers, where the first ones to pay the price to will them always. and on the issue of refugees, the biggest problem we are facing at the moment and no probably know there was the goodwill ambassador here and if they are actually visiting, recently in afghanistan. it was about the issue that when a refugee returns, he or she and his family should also feel sufficient comfort in not feeling they are just being welcomed and abandoned. due to the situation from the security situation and focus on many other issues, they often are in the middle and they need to be better. and that's why we have been

promoting joint operations between the u.n. agency in order to make sure they have a village family type of arrangements. but there is still a challenge. the good news is they are not returned back in other countries when they detect a this type of thing, they started returning back. we have had more and more coming back from pakistan, from iran, but also because many have found jobs. but you are right in raising it. >> ambassador, from isc, church can it set up at that time the policy planning for the secret now declassified as a companion piece to the marshall plan. andy explains economic framing that is the best way to get the psychological aesthetics. i am wondering whether in the

case then you wrote in the regional dimension. i am wondering whether the question of economic policy, including unemployment, which seems to be one of the top complaints could be more central and when we hear u.s. policy leaders and european counterparts speak about afghanistan, they focus very much on the security. so the question to you is now the right time to articulate the economic dimension? >> thank you, pam. lovely to see you by the way, really. and all the better, i'm delighted. i didn't know the work going through reproductively wonderful. now, we have known each other for so long and i'm delighted. god bless you.

but to your point, the time is now. yesterday the transition was announced. it will be sufficient to you comfortable and protect teen the environment are also the environment in the local environment is making young pete will find a job, working their not being tempted by guys who come from canada and also tell them to join the taliban. second, use the right word. financial plan. there is going to be a moment when, and hopefully there will be a political settlement, where there will be an urgent need for a plan, particularly in some

areas, which have been particularly affected. let's imagine pakistan in the afghan side of the border, where most of the moments there's fighting, bombing has been taking place. and not in the way, once there is a political solution come would solution, would be in nature constitute to the future of the environment, particularly in the past in area. second, attaching it again by which he said come you don't need to be a troublesome. order to deserve special attention. they could say that the troublesome to get special attention. now is the time to actually focus of economic support to the very places which a party transitioned our lives in a way. and by the way, if you look at the area, they coincide quite a lot. pyongyang, iraq, sharif.

yes, and you need to come back soon, whenever you can because i think it is exactly the type we are going to face. it cannot just be security. >> we have a couple questions specifically about the u.n. under relations to the u.s. army and u.n. staff can pair to those in the u.n. to those in the u.n. staff in afghanistan feel safe? [inaudible] -- taking over in several areas. how do you feel the impact the work of the u.n. is doing in those areas? what are your concerns and thoughts? >> if they had to accumulate the three points, i would focus on whether we in the u.n. feel it secure. the reality is that afghanistan is still a dangerous place and the reality is that the u.n. has been targeted and have had five

skillet and several wounded and we had an attack relatively recently in their own operation. they didn't succeed. we were protected by the afghan forces. the afghan soldiers with the one who shot first, got wounded and then korona internal security was given enough time to respond and to go into a safe place. by saying so, i'm trying to reply, except the one about the u.s. military, which i will ever effectively. the writing on the wall is definitely that the afghans are supposed to take over their own security. and we need to expect them to counsel them to do so. they are not massive one.

second, our job is dangerous. and the more we are proud to us, the more they become dangerous. the argument is if we were under the sky and completely pass it, we would be in a much worse danger, which is the danger the u.n. is tied in the history to becoming relevant. so, if we have to be at this and that's what all of us are volunteering, including myself and then we move forward. now, regarding our relation with the u.s. military, i'm a little bit biased because, as you probably know, i'm a fan of david petraeus. you become a friend when you go through difficult times like iraq. so i try to separate that, but it's not easy because friends are friends.

the ambassador makes a big difference because there is a lot of fair play and attention and respect i would say that the u.s. military at the highest level vis-à-vis the world. and i think as has proven also in iraq. in the way, iraq is more effective we are, the easier it is for the military not to have to do things that they should not be doing and therefore are be able to favor the so-called transition. but of course, when civilian casualties take place, which is a a process to make it to continue doing it. the civilian casualties is a painful one, although when you look at the figure, 75% were approved by the taliban. there is some major at first also to the influence that our reports and our talk and her meetings are having on the u.s. military and particular to

minimize to the maximum to run civilian casualties. but for us, when civilian casualty and therefore we continue to push that direction. >> questions? >> can i tempt you to talk about the relationship between al qaeda and the taliban? >> the shortest car at the most dangerous ones. have you read the report at nyu? you probably did. i would suggest anyone interested in afghanistan to read it. there's been a reason to report at nyu on this issue about the revision and relationship between the taliban and al qaeda that used to be, might be and

could we. and i think it is an important point. if one day they would have been, every concentration movement needs politically diplomatic church, that needs to be placed in using facilities as attack, if not public, disconnection between al qaeda and the taliban. at the taliban's claim, as they are come in saying they are afghans, they should be not in favor of any foreign presence, not foreign military presence, but certainly not other foreign presence. and al qaeda is totally foreign. i think that's the key for future discussions. i will not elaborate too much on it. read the report. you will see much of it makes

sense to me. >> we have a question. >> minutia with refugees international. there is no mention so far about justice and accountability and probably behind security is a top priority for afghans. with so many worse and worse were crammed, what do you think is the right time to do with that and what to think about the international community will be in the transition process? >> it is a constant reminder in our minds and frankly, so many bad things have happened in the past. they cannot be put under a conflict. and certainly so many afghans remember what happened during the civil war and would have

been by warlords and through warlords and in between them. at the same time, when you look at the current competition -- less difficult, the previous one, that way in my modest opinions are not too bad in comparing everything. many young new people and they were babies at the time of the werther. so 26, 28 years old. if you look at the composition of the parliament and the people in the government, you would see that the current afghan society is very much linked to tribal and two powers still. so if you decided to go forward in this constitutional justice immediately, we may produce a major conflict, which will then be taking advantage only by one group. i giving up on it, forgetting about it, for giving it, no.

so to answer your point and i think that came up last year when the issue came up, it should maintain a live flag of that injustice, of. and a good minutia of a moment and at the right time revive it and by not allowing the flame to go under the soil. otherwise there'd be no chance later. the timing now could be taking advantage only by one group. >> you spoke about the importance of the regional players like iran and pakistan in helping and sure asking future ability. we have someone in the back who wants to elaborate more. and from the wilson center. what specifically should regional consist of? it will render internal settlement in a short time so

the word will again break out. >> this story has proven exactly what the lady or the gentleman said. and that's why it is crucial. and what we need is an internal settlement with the taliban, hopefully disconnected from the al qaeda and therefore, more capable of talking afghans to afghans. without the regional clue how to exactly this happened and could happen again. so what we need is each of these regional players to be approached separately and being told, look, what is the division of afghan and what is the picture of afghanistan that would make you shiver in or feeling comfortable? in being able to address those and they are not really in metaphysics science. they are quite simple areas.

and at the same time, trying to address them and they are not too complicated provided to you read separately. in a public meeting they will not talk about that. and then have a conference, where there will be, i would say, a stability pact. and that could be putting down some rules of the game through which everyone may respect afghanistan and afghanistan may respect sensitivities, in a way that will not be temptation to get too much involved. i think that will be more than enough in afghanistan, if we get the regional meeting. >> certainly the u.n. has many challenges ahead of it, as it seeks the integration, et cetera and we wish you the best and

something for the u.n. in washington. it's a rare opportunity come as a very much. thank you all for coming. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> we are waiting for u.n. secretary ban ki-moon to breathe supporters on the u.n. resolution in libya. we'll bring that to you live in the security council comes to the closed-door meeting. here's some of today's state department briefing. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> hey, guys. good afternoon. sorry to be running a little late. >> i think an hour late is more than a bit. >> a bit late. just at the top come a few things. i just wanted to began by reiterating that the united states remains committed to finding a peaceful solution to the current crisis and cozy bar. since the beginning of the political crisis, the united states has strongly supported africans led efforts for peaceful transition of power between president that though in his elected successor, al-assad would tar up and we firmly stand behind president-elect would tar out. today, deputy assistant

secretary william fitzgerald is attending a summit of the economic community of west african states, focus on the political crisis and kosovar and we expect a strong statement from the meeting of the issues. we look forward to the upcoming resolution of the human rights council double forcefully condemn the continuing abuses and violations of human rights and kosovar and establish a commitment of inquiry to investigate these abuses. the resolution will further amplify the unequivocal message of the international community to former president died so that the mass respect to the quarry in people, step aside immediately and allow the president to carry out the media. international community will not stand by while one that users power industries the country. >> can i ask you a question about that? >> absolutely.

[inaudible] >> what exactly is the international community time to not stand by? >> well, we have supported the united nations operations and kosovar, the milky mid-day which supports protection of civilians. we have done that i supported the additional 2000 troops to strengthen its capacity to carry out mandates. in the u.s. is also opposed those visa restrictions and financial sanctions of the bed or regime. [inaudible] >> has been difficult. i agree it's a challenge. we believe we are putting pressure on him and that he is feeling the pressure and is increasingly isolated. but obviously, we need to do more and we need to continue to work to convince him that he needs to step aside and allow the elected president. >> do you know when the election was? >> that's a good question